Mats and surfaces

[muck_a_luck]

I started out doing yoga on wall-to-wall carpet in my living room. I quickly added a yoga mat, and that was my practice surface for a couple of years. Mat on carpet.

Then we moved to a house with hardwoods on the main level, so I tried mat on hardwood.

Terrible. Terrible, terrible, terrible. It hurt my heels in forward bending postures. It crushed my feet in seated postures. Rolling over my toes hurt.

So in this new place, I was doing my yoga in the basement, where I could have carpet again.

Then, Husband began yoga mat shopping. Husband is much taller than me and broader in the shoulder. He was using my standard yoga mat, and finding it too narrow. So we shopped mats for him. And we found this:





That's Husband's new black mat, with my standard purple mat on top (for size comparison).

I mentioned this extra-long, extra-wide mat in a previous post. Husband got it from www.yogaaccessories.com. It was $27.83 with shipping. It is 84 inches long and 36 inches wide.

First, as you can see, if you have ever wanted a wider mat, it is definitely much bigger than a standard yoga mat. It is also really, really cushy. Springy. Nice and thick. Very sticky, too. Definitely a good mat for someone who is looking for a big mat. I would say a little heavy, if you carry your mat around alot, plus, of course, it is longer and more awkward to carry, too.

But I think you can see from the pictures where I'm going with this.

The two mats, combined, have made the perfect yoga surface! I like mat on carpet, but as a friend of mine points out, it lacks stability. Well, with the two mats, you get the stability of the hard floor, but also a lush, yielding surface that I find comfortable for all seated postures.

It has been a great solution for me.

Do you have any thoughts about surfaces or mats? I freely admit, my experience of mats is limited to the cheapy purple mat I bought at WalMart 6 years ago (pictured above) and the mat my husband just bought. I'd love to benefit from your mat experiences. Respond in the comments, or do your own freestanding post, tagged "mats."

I'm also intrigued by people's experiences with yoga on various surfaces.