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The Yoga Mat Quest Continues

October 4, 2013 •

In an ongo­ing search for the per­fect yoga mat, I’ve just pur­chased Man­duka’s lat­est offer­ing, the new eKO® ultra-grippy mat. Here it is, air­ing out­side so the latex stink will dis­si­pate as soon as pos­si­ble. I can’t wait for my first yoga prac­tice on this mat.

It’s too stinky to use right now, but what I like about this mat are the fol­low­ing fea­tures (based on Man­duka’s claims):

  • ultra-grippy sur­face (new tex­ture as you may be able to see in this photo)
  • rub­ber base for cush­ion­ing and resiliency
  • a sta­bi­liz­ing inner core, to keep the mat from deform­ing
  • longer life than most nat­ural rub­ber mats
  • closed-cell con­struc­tion ver­sus open cell (so sweat won’t get per­ma­nently cap­tured within the cells)
  • zero-waste man­u­fac­tur­ing process

Based on a quick test yes­ter­day, the ultra-grippy sur­face has a lot of promise. I can’t wait to see how it will respond to sweaty hands and feet in the mid­dle of an extended vinyasa flow prac­tice.

I also liked my ini­tial impres­sion of its resilience, bal­anced by the sta­bil­ity. It appears less likely to lose its shape dur­ing prac­tice than the mat I’m replac­ing. The new mat is also 8 inches longer than my aging Jade Har­mony mat.

Goodbye to Jade Harmony

For the past two years I’ve brought a Jade Har­mony Pro mat to class. We’ve been good friends, and have shared a lot of won­der­ful prac­tices together sev­eral times a week. It came with me to a week­long yoga retreat in Mex­ico, which may have short­ened its life, I’m sad to say.

Like all nat­ural rub­ber mats, it has dete­ri­o­rated, despite my care to keep it out of the sun­light and clean it reg­u­larly. There are now per­ma­nent rip­ples at both ends of the mat. Even if they have no per­for­mance impact, the rip­ples dis­tract my drishti.

If the stu­dio is heated, or was heated dur­ing the prior class, the mat quickly deforms under my feet in stand­ing poses. This makes it harder to main­tain sta­bil­ity.

I really like the rel­a­tive light weight of the Jade Har­mony — a joy to carry to and from class.

The new eKO mat will weigh about 75% more than the Jade, in part because I chose a longer eKO mat. At 79 inches, it’s about 8 inches longer than the Jade — an impor­tant fac­tor, given my height. I thought long and hard about car­ry­ing the extra 3–4 pounds, but decided eKO’s fea­tures were a good trade-off, ver­sus the option of buy­ing a new Jade Har­mony.

Stay tuned. I’ll report on how well it per­forms after I’ve had some prac­tice expe­ri­ence on the new mat.

Update. I’ve aired the mat out­doors for 3 days and the room-fill­ing stink has gone. I can still smell the rub­ber when my nose is a foot away, so I’ll smell it dur­ing prac­tice. I’ve taken it to one class, and the sur­face is very grippy, as promised. This was the first 60-minute vinyasa flow class that I was able to do with­out need­ing a towel to dry my sweaty hands. That said, the rub­ber mat does stretch out under my feet in war­rior poses, so it’s not as sta­ble as I had expected. The cush­ion­ing is nice. Net net: Man­duka’s new eKO mat is a very good mat for peo­ple who pre­fer rub­ber mats — but not the all-around per­fect mat.

Update #2. Two, or is it three?, weeks later the mat is still notice­ably stinky. I’ve aired it out­doors a few more times, but most often I drape it over a chair in a spare room after class. Since my first report, I’ve taken sev­eral classes with this mat, and appre­ci­ate its func­tion­al­ity. For super sweaty prac­tices I still need to use a micro-fiber towel under my hands, but my feet no longer slip. My biggest crit­i­cism is the long, lin­ger­ing burnt rub­ber smell that per­me­ates the sur­round­ings wher­ever the mat is aired after class. The smell is also hard to ignore dur­ing savasana or any pose where your nose is on or near the mat.

Update #3. Some­where around the 3‑month mark, the annoy­ing rub­ber smell finally dis­ap­peared. I don’t know if the smell dis­ap­peared as a result of weekly deep clean­ings with an organic soap com­pound, or reg­u­lar air­ings out­doors in a well-ven­ti­lated area. Per­son­ally, I believe it took many hours of air­ing out­doors to dis­si­pate the smell. Now that it no longer stinks, this is my go-to mat for class. I always bring the eKO mat to class, and leave my heav­ier Black Mat Pro for use in my home prac­tice area.

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Reflec­tions on life, travel, books, and yoga. Think­ing out loud about the pur­suit of mind­ful­ness and well-being.

Learn­ing how to recover from the loss of a beloved spouse, and then to find a trans­for­ma­tive path for­ward.

About Me

Semi-retired marketing exec, transitioning from a career in high tech. Now "managed" by two Tonkinese cats. Missing travel and friends on the West Coast. Avid reader and foodie. Staying active with long walks, biking, kayaking and yoga.

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