I tried yoga for the first time this past week, under the auspice of a DVD called "Yoga For Athletes." At the outset it must be understood that I am not a yoga sort of person. I am inherently inflexible, which is the inevitable result of a lifetime of horseback riding and hockey, and exaggeratedly slow and intoning voices make me giggle. The whole breathing thing is something that I have dabbled in before; as a relaxation technique it is quite effective, as I've found both for myself and for those people who have received a massage from me at any point in the past. However, being told to look deep into my "inner body" and then to look out at my surroundings as I would look through a window merely results in an overwhelming mental image of Kilroy peering over the top of a truck windscreen, which then in its turn conjures up Robin Williams likening fake breasts to the same. Hardly a contemplative reflection. I would also like to point out that isolated movement of one's side ribs is physically impossible, and the guy who demonstrates the moves on the DVD is inhumanly skeletal.

All of this being said though, you would not believe how much a series of nearly motionless stances can make you hurt the next morning.