The Professional

172 classes in 167 days.
25 classes in 24 days in the 101 challenge.

Still have my cold:( However, the last few classes were surprisingly good. I was especially happy with my floor series on Friday and Sunday. Despite barely being able to breathe for parts of the classes, I did Ok.

Saturday was a special day. Lynn Whitlow taught a class and did a seminar at my studio. I wasn't able to stay for the seminar, but I did take her class. She's a senior teacher and very respected and loved in the Bikram community. Now I know why. She's the toughest, most ruthless teacher I've had yet. In other words, she's fantastic.

Yoga carnage would be an understatement for her class. Yoga demolition is more like it. The room wasn't even very hot, but the class lasted 105 minutes and Lynn is so demanding and kept us longer than usual in a lot of the postures. It's amazing how just a few extra seconds can make a big difference in how you feel. We're so used to the exact timing of the postures, but it is fun to mix things up a little sometimes, particularly when you're getting spot on corrections. The corrections I learned on a few postures was well worth the extra cost I had to pay for her class.

Since you had to pay separately for the class, only really dedicated yogis showed up. Half the class or more was other teachers, and Lynn didn't hesitate to call them out for sitting out some postures or having a hard time. At the most, maybe five people in the whole room didn't sit out at least part of some postures. The only thing I sat out was not doing Camel all the way. Otherwise, I slogged through everything.

Lynn's attention to detail is phenomenal and she has a wonderful understanding of what each of the postures does for you. For example, she pointed out that Balancing Stick burns more calories than any other posture. I've never heard that before.

After class, she told me, "Good work in there." I'll take that as a high praise coming from her:)

Greg