Posts tagged as:

yoga mat

Manduka eQua Towel Provides Amazing Non-slip Yoga Surface

March 19, 2010

I ran three miles on the treadmill this morning and then jumped on the yoga mat for some oh so nice cool down poses. Usually when I run I sweat buckets, then by the time I unroll my yoga mat I’m dripping puddles on my mat and slipping around like an ice skater. It’s kind of gross…and dangerous at times. Not so today, though. While I really do like my Black Mat, the truth is when I start sweating a lot it gets a bit slippery. Maybe I just haven’t worn it in well enough yet. Anyhow, I think I’ve finally found the perfect combination.

After reading the reviews about the Yogitoes Skidless Premium Mat and the Manduka eQua Towel, I decided to give the eQua Towel a try (I bought the long towel). Although I’m still trying to avoid making unnecessary, life-complicating purchases, I decided that investment in a new yoga towel might slip into an exception to the rule somehow, especially since I’ve been getting tired of feeling my hands and feet sliding out from underneath me while I’m bent over backwards in wheel pose. Let me just say that in the few days I’ve practiced on it I’m extremely impressed with the new-found non-slip surface the eQua Towel provides when the sweat really gets dripping. I practiced wheel pose the other day without a hint of slippage. The towel doesn’t slip, your hands don’t slip, everything stays where it’s supposed to. It’s awesome! Just that little extra reassurance that my hands felt on the towel made a huge difference in how I practiced the pose.

While the Yogitoes Skidless may be a great towel as well, I can certainly vouch for the eQua Towel as a great addition to your yoga practice. Drop any questions you have about the towel in the comments and I’ll answer whatever I can based on my experience.

Namaste!

Tagged as: equa yoga towel, manduka, review, yoga mat, yogitoes

43 Creative Ways to Reuse or Recycle Your Old Yoga Mat

January 26, 2010

Let’s face it, even if your favorite yoga mat is bulletproof and will never ever wear out, there’s still a decent chance that you have a collection of yoga mats laying around the house, most likely never to be used for their intended purpose ever again. Eventually, one day you may decide to tidy up the place and gaze in astonishment at all your mats. First, you’ll wonder where the heck they all came from. And second, you’ll wonder what the heck to do with them since you really don’t need old, worn-out mats filling up the corners of every room in your house, do you?

Well, it certainly looks yogic to have a mat in every corner, but then you think to yourself there must be something practical I could do with all these extra pieces of large, spongy, colorful, plastic rectangles. The simple answer:

REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE

After a little personal introspection and Internet research, I compiled this list of 43 creative ways to reuse, recycle, and extend your old yoga mats’ non-yoga related usefulness. Sound fun? Get your scissors ready. Off you go:

My Personal Top 10 Reuse/Recycle Options:

Turn your mat into a bleacher cushion. Great for those hard bleachers when watching sporting events. Here’s how: Step 1) Cut the mat into equal pieces to make one top and bottom (the size of a newspaper laid flat); Step 2) Punch holes about every 2 inches with a paper hole punch all the way around (both top and bottom); Step 3) Take a couple of days worth of newspapers and lay them between the top and bottom (or if you have another old mat to sacrifice, chop it up and use it as the cushioning); Step 4) Use yarn, ribbon, rawhide, etc. to lace the holes and tie off. Oh yeah, pretty sweet, huh? To re-stuff, untie and add new newspaper. Easy to store, lightweight, washable, reusable, and comfortable
Leave the beach towel home and bring your old yoga mat to the beach instead (caution! may induce spontaneous yoga poses on the beach
Save your floors and roll out the old mats for the kids to do messy craft projects on
Along the same lines as number 1, fold mat in four, place in a pillow cover, and you have a cheap and comfy meditation cushion
Donate your old mat to a mat recycling program such as Recycle Your Mat, an eco-conscious organization whose goal is to re-purpose or recycle the world’s unwanted yoga mats. Apparently Manduka offers 20% discount on your next mat purchase if you go this route! Jade Yoga also offers a 3R Program where yoga students can drop off their used up and unwanted mats to participating studios who, with Jade’s help will find local resources to reuse or donate the mats. I’m sure there’s more recycling programs like these, so feel free to comment if you know of other programs that deserve a mention
Enjoy yoga in the wild! Use old mats as a “Guerrilla Yoga” mat alternative (okay, I just mean plain old outside yoga, but Guerrilla Yoga sounds so much more primitive). Most, if not all, “eco” mats are susceptible to damage by the elements and using them for outside practice is not the best idea. Now you don’t have to jack up your good mat doing it
How could the computer geek inside me resist a nice, thick, cushiony yoga mouse pad for surfing the Internet
I really hate rattling stereo speakers. Place cut out yoga mat squares under those noisy stereo speakers to reduce vibration rattle
Do you absolutely love the feel of yoga mat on your feet? Why not cut out yoga mat insoles for all your shoes. Now you’re a true yogi! Oh, wait, no your not unless you’ve tried number 10…
True yogis don’t wear shoes, right? Why not make a pair of flip-flops out of your yoga mat?!? Click the link and/or watch the video below for everything you need to know. You’re going to need these for going to the beach (see #2 above)

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Tagged as: recycling, yoga, yoga mat

Operation: FIND YOGA MAT (Baghdad)

June 26, 2009

Location: BAGHDAD

In recent posts, I’ve sort of alluded to the fact that I’m not currently building sand castles on the beautiful sandy beaches of Northwest Florida with my family, but instead I’m dodging roadside bombs and rubbing shoulders with terrorists in Baghdad, Iraq. I’m sure Baghdad used to be an interesting, maybe even beautiful city at some point in ancient history, but living here now is comparable to taking up residence inside a vacuum bag. Just my opinion, but there’s not a lot of redeeming qualities about Iraq in general. I’m getting used to it though, and luckily don’t mind working 90 hour weeks most of the time. That’s what attorneys do, right?

I work as the lone JAG (military attorney) in a temporary holding facility where high value detainees frequently make their first stop after capture to chat with our interrogators. Needless to say, there’s absolutely nothing CNN-worthy that occurs at our facility. It’s a very “dry” place…. that remains in operation and stands as a testament to the fact that an endless supply of murderers, extortionists, kidnappers, and corrupt politicians continue to roam the streets of Iraq. It’s sad, but true. I suppose it’s better than it was a few years ago. Job-wise though, I get just enough action convoying with detainees to meet Iraqi judges to keep things exciting, but not so much action that I have to tell too many lies to my wife and mother when they ask me how my day went.

Operation: FIND YOGA MAT

Anyhow, when I packed my bags and left home in early May, there simply wasn’t enough room for a yoga mat in my luggage. I thought I’d be fine without it since I didn’t know what my living arrangements would be like or whether I’d have any time to unroll it and practice. When I first got here, I started lifting weights again, which I hadn’t really done regularly since marrying my wife eight years ago. Of course my wife loves it when I lift weights, and I wouldn’t say I don’t enjoy pumping a little iron, I mean heck, who doesn’t want a chiseled body, but honestly, I’m realizing that I’m not the same person I was eight years ago. Weight lifting simply doesn’t carry the same physical challenge and mental solitude that I crave from running and yoga. So now I run and practice yoga. That’s where Operation: FIND YOGA MAT begins.

I know I’ve heard of bases here in Baghdad that offer yoga to soldiers, but unfortunately the complex I live at doesn’t offer any yoga classes. The first, and biggest challenge in doing yoga here so far has been figuring out where to get a mat. I had high hopes that one of the Post Exchanges would have something that would work as a mat substitute, but the best I could come up with was a thin, twin sized polyester bedspread that I thought might work if I folded it in half. I decided to give it a whirl since it was only six bucks. I live by myself, so I rearranged my room to have an open space that’s perfect for doing yoga. Unfortunately, after using the blanket a couple of times I quickly realized that doing downdog on the blanket might have been easier with roller skates on. The blanket got especially slippery when I started working up a sweat. That was one plan that didn’t work out.

Realizing the yoga blanket was merely a temporary fix, I talked to my wife about possibly folding up one of my mats at home and stuffing it in a box to send. We decided it might just be easier to order a new mat so I began scouring the Internet for a cheap, lightweight yoga mat. As I began shopping, I discovered that a limited number of sellers ship overseas, even to APO addresses. Maybe I was just looking in the wrong places. I was a bit discouraged until I chatted with my wife and she asked me if I’d looked at YogaAccessories.com. I had run across it, but hadn’t looked very closely. When I checked into the site a little bit further, I was pretty much sold when I read their mailing policy, which states:

We can ship any item to any address anywhere in the world! At YogaAccessories.com, we are proud to support our men and women who serve in the US military by offering shipping options that include APO/FPO addresses.

That’s what I’m talking about. How about a little love for the troops every now and then! While they don’t sell expensive name brand mats like Manduka, Jade, or Hugger Mugger, their prices were very reasonable. The Wal-Mart of yoga products I guess. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they have my newly ordered 5mm Eco-Conscious Yoga Mat delivered in a week or so. Operation: FIND YOGA MAT (Baghdad) will soon be complete. In the meantime, I’ll keep tearing up my vinyasa flow on the slip-and-slide blanket.

[caption id="attachment_398" align="alignnone" width="385" caption="Mission Accomplished! (Almost!!)"]

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