In my enduring effort to free my pure physical specimen from its accumulated coat of beer and bacon grease, I decided to take up yoga.

I see women like Jennifer Anniston and Madonna and Wendie Malick and Gwyneth Paltrow – strong, lithe, supple – and I think to myself: What do they have that I’m lacking? Basic coordination, genetic superiority and good posture, for sure… along with an innate ability to avoid that second donut. Must be the yoga: It builds balance and flexibility (important in a 39-year-old body) and I’m told it helps settle the mind so you can focus on more important things than beer and donuts and olives and cheese.

I signed up for a gentle / zen / yen yoga class with my friend Laura (who had no idea what she was getting herself into). It’s an hour-and-a-half of stretching – for an admittedly inflexible person, the benefits seemed self-evident, and really, how hard could it be?

Fold the folds of your body into fleshy origami, inhale to lengthen the pose, exhale to deepen it… and hold for five minutes. Feel your limbs come alive with increased blood-flow and awareness: Are knees really supposed to bend this way? Am I feeling the deep ujjayic breath even though my lungs have been bent in half? And what exactly is ujjayic breath? I just heard a crack – was that my hip or my spine? And I’m turning to the left… and everyone is facing me – oh, yeah, my other left. In becoming lengthened and oxygenated through breath, my connective tissue found its own voice of aching burn – or maybe it was just being ripped from my joints in one interminably long… quiet… mindful… painful process. Just five more seconds… and three… two… one. Release.

To provide extra support for young yogis mastering these exotic new poses (padangusthasana, anyone?), they have props: blankets, belts and foam blocks… For someone like me, they would be stumbling blocks out of some pranayama S&M fantasy. It’s hard enough to figure out left from right without having to determine where to place the foam block that’s supposed to help you open your heart, open your hips and detoxify your liver, let alone loop this strap around your foot to assist in swinging it over your head… while remembering to breathe the ujjayic breath of life.

My takeaway from zen yoga was this: Am I doing it right?

Until I woke up the next day (after the best night’s sleep I’d had in ages) and felt a new awareness of every muscle in my body: A NEW, PAINFUL, SORE AWARENESS. If that was gentle yoga, it was a gentle ass-kicking.

And yet… I couldn’t reconcile this gentle ass-kicking with my innate desire to kick ass. There was no way to win at gentle yoga – or even to keep score. And while I took pride over my six weeks and three introductory offers at two different studios in my ability to move deeper into certain poses and to make it through an entire session with correct left-and-right orientation, I felt that I needed to be doing something… more.

Which brought me (and unsuspecting Laura) to the doorstep of Sumit’s Yoga with my DealChicken coupon for one month of unlimited hot yoga for just $24: Hilarity ensued. To be continued…