94 Year Old Wins Dance Competions

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94 year old Tao Porchon-Lynch

Tao Porchon-Lynch dances with abandon!

 Tao Porchon-Lynch is a 94 year old yoga teacher who started dancing in her eighties.  A perfect example of “It’s never too late to start”, Tao hit the ground running when she decided to take on ballroom dance.  It wasn’t long before she began winning competitions. 

     Unlike a lot of my favorite examples of active dancers in the final decades of life, Tao did not start young.  She actually chose it as a new activity in her eighties.  She was, of course, active all of her life and did not suddenly decide to use dance as a way to get fit in her old age.  I won’t say this isn’t possible, but she’s a good example of why it’s a good idea to find an activity you love and make it a part of your life. 

     Active people age better and an active lifestyle makes it easier to take on a new activity when you’re older to keep your mind and body from atrophying.  I recently read an article on the internet that included a questionnaire to determine your activity level.  The highest category was “highly active” and the definition was at least an hour of exercise a day. 

     Our bodies are designed to be active most of the time and it’s a commentary of our times that a person who spends 23 hours a day sitting or sleeping is considered highly active.  We have to fight cultural pressures to keep our bodies in motion and healthy.  The best exercise, I tell my students, is the one you’ll do.  If you want to have this much fun in your eighties, find something you love to do and do it often!

Meanwhile, enjoy this video of of Tao![embedplusvideo height=”507″ width=”640″ standard=”http://www.youtube.com/v/P2MoztPyvgY?fs=1″ vars=”ytid=P2MoztPyvgY&width=640&height=507&start=&stop=&rs=w&hd=0&autoplay=0&react=1&chapters=&notes=” id=”ep4339″ /]

By LaurieAnn Lepoff

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About the Author

With a professional dance teaching career spanning over three decades, LaurieAnn Lepoff specializes in teaching people with two-left-feet the skills of leading, following and dancing to the music, while working with the psychological and physical barriers of the human body.