Which Yoga Mat to Bring to a Retreat

In a few weeks I’m head­ing off to a yoga retreat — my first-ever trip to Mex­ico. Hop­ing to travel light, my mind keeps pon­der­ing the ques­tion of which yoga mat to bring.

I’ll be chal­lenged with 4 hours of prac­tice daily for 6 days, so choos­ing the right mat is not as triv­ial a ques­tion as it might seem. Well beyond my phys­i­cal com­fort zone…

As with sail­boats, there is no per­fect option: each mat has def­i­nite pros and cons. My options are:

• Bring no mat — take my chances and use what­ever the retreat cen­ter chooses to pro­vide
• Bring an all-rub­ber Jade Har­mony pro­fes­sional mat
• Bring my extra-long Man­duka mat

I’ve ruled out the travel light, bring-no-mat option. Given the time and money I’m invest­ing in this retreat, it would be a shame to jeop­ar­dize the expe­ri­ence by hav­ing to use a crappy mat while there.

So the choice comes down to the Jade Har­mony ver­sus the Man­duka. Here’s how each one stacks up for this Mex­i­can yoga retreat.

Jade Harmony

Pros

• Weighs half as much as my Man­duka (about 4 pounds lighter)
• Works bet­ter in a heated room (or a hot cli­mate) before my sweaty hands and feet start to slip
• Nice cush­ion­ing under my hands and fin­ger­tips, espe­cially in DFD
• Pretty blue color

This mat is flex­i­ble enough to be folded into a large duf­fle bag that could also hold my cloth­ing and yoga acces­sories. I’d pre­fer not to incur a bag­gage check fee just so I can bring my own mat. (The round-trip fees for check­ing an extra piece of lug­gage on an inter­na­tional flight would buy a new mat!)

Cons

• Some­times too short for some vinyasa sequences or reclin­ing poses
• Unsta­ble in some bal­ance poses, espe­cially when mov­ing from a sta­tic bal­ance pose to another pose
• Deforms under my back foot in war­rior poses or lunges when the mat warms up dur­ing prac­tice
• The open cell rub­ber some­times “catches” my legs dur­ing low-to-the-ground “jump through” tran­si­tions

In Mex­ico I’ll encounter day­time tem­per­a­tures in the 90s, so the mat will prob­a­bly deform under my feet more quickly or more often than it does in Pacific North­west yoga stu­dios. I’m some­what con­cerned about this risk.

Net net: the Jade is a bet­ter trav­el­ing com­pan­ion, but offers a less sta­ble foun­da­tion than the Man­duka.

Manduka Black Mat Pro

Pros

• Sta­bil­ity, sta­bil­ity, sta­bil­ity
• Plenty of room (it’s the extra-long model)
• Well loved, well used — lots of great karma asso­ci­ated with this par­tic­u­lar mat

Cons

• It’s heavy
• It’s less grippy than the Jade Har­mony, so I’ll have to use a micro-fiber towel on top to absorb the sweat
• It can­not be folded into a duf­fle and would require its own travel bag (adding $50–100 in extra lug­gage fees)

The Man­duka’s extra weight is not too bad if I must carry it only dur­ing tran­sit between home and my des­ti­na­tion. If it’s unsafe to leave in the open air stu­dio, I face the has­sle of car­ry­ing it back and forth twice a day. We’ve been warned about the risk of theft (don’t bring valu­ables), so it’s quite likely I’d be lug­ging this 9‑pound mon­ster many times dur­ing the week in Mex­ico.

Net net: the most sta­ble foun­da­tion I could wish for, but not a good trav­el­ing com­pan­ion. $50–100 penalty to bring this mat…

My mind is not yet made up. Two more weeks before I must decide which is the bet­ter option.