The Quest for the Perfect Yoga Mat, Take 2

A while ago I wrote about my search for the per­fect sticky mat for in-home yoga prac­tice. I’m still look­ing, but have a more informed opin­ion based on fur­ther tri­als. It’s a toss-up between prAna’s Rev­o­lu­tion mat and my long-time favorite, the black mat pro from Man­duka. Both are top-of-the-line mats designed for seri­ous yogi­nis who want years of ser­vice from their sticky mat.

prAna Revolution Yoga Mat

There’s a lot to like about the Rev­o­lu­tion sticky mat, par­tic­u­larly its gen­er­ous pro­por­tions and rock-solid sta­bil­ity (shown here). It’s great for peo­ple with broad shoul­ders and long arms, like me.

I appre­ci­ate the fact that prAna worked with John Friend, the founder of the Anusara branch of yoga, to get deep insights into the right bal­ance of fea­tures and per­for­mance. Its aes­thet­ics are nice too, although the logo place­ment is a bit odd. In my expe­ri­ence the prAna Rev­o­lu­tion mat excels at bal­ance poses that require sta­bil­ity, such as Tree Pose, Crow or the war­rior poses.

Now that autumn has arrived in Seat­tle, I’m less sat­is­fied when it comes to prac­tic­ing asanas on the Rev­o­lu­tion mat: the nat­ural rub­ber sur­face often feels cold and clammy under my bare feet. For bare­foot prac­tice in a chilly room, I def­i­nitely pre­fer the Man­duka Black Mat Pro.

Unfor­tu­nately, my hands and feet tend to get sweaty after 30 min­utes of prac­tice or so (or even sooner with vig­or­ous vinyasa series), and I don’t find the anti-slip qual­i­ties of the Rev­o­lu­tion to be effec­tive enough. To man­age the prob­lem of slip­pery hands and feet, I’m forced to use a yoga towel.

I’m also dis­ap­pointed with the Rev­o­lu­tion mat’s cush­ion­ing and resilience. It’s less “giv­ing” than I had been led to believe from the online reviews and prod­uct descrip­tions. When doing poses that put weight on fin­ger tips or bony knees, I strongly pre­fer my Man­duka mat. For an hour of asanas, the Man­duka offers a bet­ter bal­ance of cush­ion­ing and sta­bil­ity trade-offs. I also find the Man­duka to be less sus­cep­ti­ble to slip­ping when my hands and feet get sweaty – or maybe this is just the con­se­quence of two years’ of usage… The Rev­o­lu­tion has had fewer hours of “break-in” time.

For Yoga Classes Away from Home

Both the Rev­o­lu­tion and Man­duka mats are really heavy to carry to and from class (some­where in the 7–8 lb. range). I’ve tried both sev­eral times. Although they are way bet­ter for asanas than the typ­i­cal mats stocked by yoga stu­dios, they’ll make you work dur­ing the trans­port phase.

If you own the longer mats (the ones sized for tall peo­ple), nor­mal mat sacks are too small. As a result you either have to roll and then secure them with straps, or buy an extra-large car­rier. (Or look into sewing your own car­ry­ing bag, as I plan to do – once I find a suit­able fab­ric.)

I use the 85-inch Man­duka sticky mat at home, but find it way too big and heavy to carry back and forth. So I’ve recently pur­chased the stan­dard 71-inch Man­duka mat for use in class and keep it rolled up in my car­rier bag. It seems a shame to own more than one yoga mat, but this approach is a work­able com­pro­mise given the lack of a per­fect mat that suits all my require­ments.

Net net: the Man­duka Black Mat Pro still gets my vote as the best mat for a tall yogini.