In my enduring effort to liberate my rock-hard abs from their buttery prison of fried chicken and waffles, I decided to take up yoga.

Having experienced Zen Yoga and the art of Pavana Muktasana (the Wind-Removing Pose – which in my case can be called upward-facing flatulence), I decided to kick it up a notch and try my hand at Hot Yoga, especially since my two special introductory offers with Urban Yoga and At One Yoga had expired, and I’d just scored one month of unlimited hot yoga at Sumit’s Yoga through Deal Chicken.

Serious yogis practice yoga in ways that speak to their heart – I, on the other hand, try to practice as cheaply as possible. What that says about my heart is uncertain, but knowing my competitive nature, I thought the words “dynamic, challenging workout” spoke to my soul more than “contemplative, calming meditation.” So the unsuspecting (and imminently game) Laura and I trotted over to Sumit’s after work one day for an invigorating round of Hot Yoga: 90 minutes of dynamic, strengthening yoga poses in a room heated to 115 degrees.

Or, basically hiking in Arizona in July at 3 PM, I thought. How hard can it be?

Let’s just say there’s a reason helicopters pluck hikers off mountaintops in Arizona in July.

Laura and I arrived imminently overdressed – she in her cute, black pants, pink shirt and matching, long-sleeved shrug and I in my cotton T-shirt and long pants. We had one towel between us – one that I’d found in the trunk of my car. Fortunately I’d managed to grab a small water bottle on the way out the door. Realizing she’d arrived without any means to replace the fluids she was sure to sweat away in a detoxifying torrent, Laura proceeded to purchase THE MOST EXPENSIVE BOTTLE OF WATER, EVER – or as we capitalists like to say, I loaned her $10 so we could learn a lesson in scarce natural resources.

To summarize: They heat the room to 115 degrees to make your limbs more flexible and help you move into the poses while sweating out toxins and keeping your heart-rate high for a bracing aerobic workout. As opposed to traditional Bikram Yoga (the original Hot Yoga), Sumit’s does a hybrid of Bikram and Ashtanga (or Flow Yoga) set to high-energy, contemporary music. Sounds fun, no?

Well, I made a hot mess of hot yoga – but not the hot, desirable mess of a Miley Cyrus train-wreck adolescence. More of a hot, sweaty, uncoordinated mess of flailing thighs and flapping triceps. As opposed to Zen Yoga, where we carefully calibrate poses and contemplate them for five agonizing minutes, Hot Yoga at Sumit’s involves moving quickly from one pose to the next with each segment divided by your “vinyasa” – which is plank pose (top of a push up) slowly moving down into chaturanga (or holding a push-up about 2 inches off the ground) inhaling into upward-facing dog and then exhaling into downward-facing dog, which is an active recovery pose, unless you’re me looking through your legs at the rest of the room and realizing that all of your fellow yogis have towels atop their yoga mats for extra grip and your rubber mat is a sweat-soaked Slip-n-Slide toward ruin. This would be downward-facing destruction.

I also realized that my fellow practitioners also had EXTRA towels to sop the sweat from their brows. Laura and I had one (1) towel between us… and it was pretty much sopping up everything in sight. At this point, I didn’t mind wiping my face with the same towel that had just wiped up my butt-sweat and Laura’s foot-sweat and had likely mopped up engine grease during its previous life in the trunk of my car; I just wanted to survive and we were only 20 minutes in.

Well, we survived all right: Looking like we’d watched a marathon of Lifetime TV movies during your worst-ever episode of PMS – puffy, red, blotchy faces smeared with mascara, our hair matted to our heads and stuck to our cheeks, our sweaty pants looking like an advertisement for incontinence products.

“So, shall we do this again on Friday?” I asked.

“Sounds great!” said Laura, who failed to check her calendar wherein she would have realized that she was going to be booked for eternity as long as Hot Yoga was on the dance card.

So the next yoga date came around and Laura had to bathe her dog and wax her eyebrows – or maybe it was bathe her eyebrows and wax her dogs. Not being one to be defeated – and wanting to make sure I got my $24 worth of Hotness – I returned to Sumit’s a little later than I’d hoped and found only one spot open in the studio… on the front row… right in front of the mirror… so I could witness how poorly I was doing my poses compared to everyone else. But figuring that slinking onto the front row was better than making all the back-row Baptists scoot down, I unfurled my mat in the open space… right below the space heater.

I can say that being dressed appropriately, having two towels and drinking plenty of water (per the instructions for beginners right there on the Sumit’s website), made for a more successful outing. While I won’t say I enjoyed my second helping of Hotness, I was happy to have completed it – especially when the guy next to me (who could put his foot behind his head) said, “Is this your first time? You did great! If you can stand in front of the heater and finish without fainting…”

His lips moved, but I can’t hear what he’s saying – since the room was growing dark and I was just trying to catch my breath – and not even the ujjayic breath, just a plain, old, everyday oxygen-delivering breath to the few lung chunks I’d not managed to cough up. Thanks, Dude, you’re a stud – but really, I just want to leave now.

Third time’s a charm: At this point, I would be averaging $8 per class; I knew what to expect since they do the same sequence of poses for each session; I knew where not to stand since I wanted nothing to do with the space heater or the front row; and I had my towel, my shorts and my water-bottle at the ready. It was time to make Hot Yoga my bitch.

Until I got to the warrior series of poses (Kickmybigoldassana) – or perhaps it was the tree pose series (Feelyourbootyburnana) – as I planted my left leg firmly to balance and pivot my body forward, and my body wanted to keep pivoting forward all the way into a faceplant on my sweaty towel and the Holyshitana Imgonnafainturanga pose. Fortunately I was on the front row so I could watch it happening… in slow motion… in the mirror. I managed to drop into child’s pose, which is one of two designated recovery poses.  If I could just hang out here and refocus on my intention, I’d be able to catch up on the next series and continue with the workout.

Each time we come to the yoga mat, the instructors ask us to set an intention. Today, my intention was to have a strong, successful Hot Yoga session (see “make Hot Yoga my bitch” above). My forehead on the sweaty mat (I’d forgotten my big towel) and my lungs grasping at the sweat-soaked, 115-degree air, I decided to manage my intentions to a more reasonable, “Embrace the challenges ahead of you.” My heart-rate slightly lower, I crawled out of child’s pose, stood back up, firmly planted my right leg, pivoted my body forward, saw the gathering darkness tunnel around my eyes, and watched myself drop back into child’s pose.

I slithered toward the edge of the mat and gulped my now-warm water. Child’s pose. Child’s pose. Child’s pose. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. Heart still beating? Check. Eyes can focus? Check. Ears can still hear the instructor? Check. Inhale, exhale. I can feel my limbs – a good sign. Room’s not going dark. Calming down. Calming down, now. Calming down… and re-setting my intention: I JUST WANT TO SURVIVE! I DON’T WANT TO DIE! PLEASE JUST LET ME LIVE AND I PROMISE NEVER TO MAKE FUN OF PEOPLE AGAIN!

Calm down, Stacy, no need to panic.

“Just this last set and we’ll have a break,” the instructor said. Music to my still-functioning ears. I rose to my knees and felt the blood rush to my head.

I laid back down into Savasana: The aptly named Corpse Pose and the second of the designated recovery poses.

WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE! MY ORGANS ARE SHUTTING DOWN. THE END IS NEAR! THEY WANT ME IN THE CORPSE POSE SO IT’S EASIER TO DISPOSE OF THE BODY!

She opened the door – my big break! I rolled up my mat and skated through a graveyard of corpse poses. Not me, suckers! I’m not gonna die. I’m just going to sit outside on this bench with my head between my knees in the fresh, cold, non-sweaty, non-farty great outdoors. The instructor came to check on me.

“Are you OK?”

“Just felt like I was going to faint. I’m sorry. You really did a great job – today just wasn’t my day.”

“Well, take your time – and know that we do the same series every time so you can come back and try again. Are you sure you’re OK?”

“I’ll be fine. Sorry to interrupt the class.”

She closed the door to the studio. Slowly, the world came into focus. I started to feel a little less panicked… and a little more in control of my bowels… and maybe even a little embarrassed, but at least I’d be able to drive home without fainting… except that my keys were back in the studio with my bag in the changing area. I went to the front door to the reception: LOCKED.

You’ve got to be kidding me. I’M SO C-C-C-COLD! MY ORGANS ARE SHUTTING DOWN! HYPOTHERMIA IS SETTING IN! WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!

So I walked back to the studio door, now frosted over with fog and the resumption of self-abuse, and knocked, hoping that someone would hear me – a sad, wet, stray, smelly puppy scratching at the door… and interrupting their yoga practice for the second time tonight.

The instructor let me in.

“Sorry – there’s no one at the front desk and the front door is locked.”

I froggered my way through a cascade of kicking legs and stacked hips to the door that leads to the changing area – by the time I got there, I was starting to feel dizzy again. I pulled my dry business clothes across my clammy frame, cursed the pending dry cleaning bill, dumped the soaked yoga shirt and shorts in my gym bag, fished out my keys, splashed my face with water and stumbled toward the door.

But there was still no one at the reception desk, and I couldn’t exactly walk out the front door leaving everyone’s car keys, clothes and cellphones unattended. I may not be good at yoga, but I know what karma is.

I stood outside the studio door, waiting again for the instructor, so I could manage that heretofore unknown and rarest of postures: Embarrassana Walkaranga – The Yoga Walk of Shame, Part 3.

Excuse me. Pardon me. Sorry. Sorry. Pardon me. I’m sorry. Go ahead. No you didn’t kick me. My bad. My fault. Sorry to disturb you. I’m sorry. Excuse me. Pardon me. Excuse me. Pardon me. Sweet Jesus, there’s the door!

They say that yoga is supposed to increase your self-awareness and inner peace. I’d have to say both Zen Yoga and Hot Yoga made me more aware of my need to be outdoors where there’s more room to explore my lack of coordination. It also made me aware of my very own brand of inner panic and infernal, internal dialog. That said, the yogis I’ve met are good people with kind hearts and I’m glad for the opportunity to have practiced with them… or at the very least to have amused and entertained them… and I’m glad they didn’t have to send the helicopters out to rescue me.

Oh, and Laura says belly-dancing is up next on the dance card.

Namaste.