Yoga Mat Reviews

Part 1 of 3

Buying a yoga mat is a very personal thing since not many materials will come into direct contact with almost every part of our physical body with our sweat and maybe tears during a very internally focused practice and one that can be quite physically demanding as well.  This may sound strange but I’ve never bought a yoga mat, I always seem to have friends that were giving theirs away or people that gave them to me as gifts or students that left them behind and didn’t return my calls to pick up their mat.

So I now have about 7 yoga mats of all textures, thicknesses, colors and materials. I even have mats with body paint on them from a yoga class where we painted ourselves in neon colors made the room dark and practiced with a black light.

You get very attached to your yoga mat.  I had a thin blue one for years that got a lot of use and abuse.  It wasn’t so easy to clean and it kept getting dirtier and smudgier (is that a word?).

I just couldn’t bear to throw it away or use any of my other mats.  One day I was in a well lit class and we were having a lecture and just looked at my dirty mat in comparison to everyone else who had a shiny clean one and felt embarassed.  It was hard but I threw that smudgy mat away in the dumpster immediately after.

I used to take my thin blue one when I am traveling or on public transport but when I am driving to a studio near here I like my eco-friendly, textured green one.  Oh, and surprise, I don’t have a purple yoga mat although that seems to be the most common yoga mat color.

If you are brand new to yoga I don’t recommend buying a mat immediately.  Try out the extra mats at the studio first to see which ones suit your needs.  You usually can’t return a yoga mat.  This sounds peculiar but if you are borrowing a mat at a studio, they are not always cleaned so well so take a whiff before you start your practice.  Some studios just don’t get in the habit of cleaning mats so ask about this before you pick one out if you are suspicious.  If you see yoga mats drying in the studio because they were recently cleaned that is a good sign that the studio has some hygenic mats.

I think you know you are a yogi when you have your own mat.  You know you are a serious yoga practitioner when you have 2-3 mats.  You’re a yoga business owner when you have 5 plus mats.

What are your thoughts of your yoga mat?