A yoga mat eliminates the slip and slide from your yoga practice by adding the stability you require to do each pose with balance and poise. However, the best motivation for doing your poses flawlessly undoubtedly will be the appreciation you feel for Yoga, itself.
What Yoga Practice Can Do for You
Yoga helps you in awakening your inner body and enlivening your outer body! Doing each pose correctly requires your complete attention, and such focus awakens your mental awareness. Your “outer body” is enriched as each pose nourishes, energizes, and revitalizes every cell, fiber, and tissue through enhanced breathing, flexibility, strength and alignment. The goal of yoga practice is to create a union between the body, mind and spirit.
If you would like to master a yoga pose, you will need extraordinary patience, plus time and dedication. Do not expect perfect poses in the beginning. But, slowly over time, as you practice and make an effort to perform each pose correctly, without pushing yourself too far physically or beating yourself up mentally, you will discover that you are developing flexibility, strength, and energy physically and feeling more peaceful and clear mentally.
Try to create an uncluttered, graceful space for your yoga practice, with a bare floor, preferably, and a clear wall. Avoid distractions, such as cell phones, during your yoga practice. For optimum function, you should not eat for at least 2 hours before practicing. If you can’t go without eating, then try to eat something light, such as a piece of fruit, but no more than 1 hour before you start your yoga practice.
If you should encounter pain or discomfort as you undertake a pose, pause or stop, then try again with more mindful movement.
Yoga props and yoga accessories, such as yoga mats, yoga bolsters, yoga straps, yoga blocks, yoga mat bags, and even yoga towels are perfect for benefiting you in moving deeper into a pose, in performing a flawless pose, and in practicing in a healthful way.
There are quite a few good reasons to think about using yoga props, not the least of which is that they assist in relieving discomfort, even pain, during difficult yoga poses.
Until you’ve cultivated core structural strength, yoga props can help you to avoid injuring yourself.
Doing yoga releases rigidity, and using props adis with stress relief by offering the support you require to relax (but not be lazy) in your practice.
The plumb line, that is, “head-over-heels” body alignment, is essential in doing yoga poses accurately. Yoga props encourage appropriate alignment.
Ease and flexibility of movement are are another healthy part of the benefits to using yoga props. Certain props create space in the joints and allow the body more fluid movement without causing stress on a particular joint.
As we mentioned earlier, yoga practice is about unifying the mind, body and spirit through the expansion of a deeper awareness and the evolution of mindfulness. How do yoga props assist in this great goal? When you are able to simply focus your awareness on doing your yoga poses flawlessly, rather than concerning yourself with transitory limitations, you will go deeper into that balance of mind, body, and spirit.
Yoga Mats
There are many benefits to using the thin, rectangular (often rubber) mat, known as a yoga mat, or a sticky mat. Its principal function is to assist in keeping you from sliding as you move into various yoga poses. It offers a stable, non-slip surface for your practice.
It is also made of material that gives it the “perfect” texture, the one Baby Bear would use if he practiced yoga. If you were to try to do your yoga practice on a surface that was too soft, like a carpet, you would find it difficult to balance or to position yourself correctly. On the other hand, several poses would be too uncomfortable for your hands, knees, and feet if you made an effort to practice them on a hard surface, such as a hardwood floor.
You will find that, in addition to providing stability as you practice, a yoga mat provides protection from cool floors. Nearly all yoga mats are made of non-latex or natural rubber that is both lightweight and durable. There are yoga mats around, however, that are more eco-friendly. One such mat is a new “environmentally friendly” yoga mat made of PER (Polymer Environmental Resin), a material that is ascribed to be more “responsive” to the environment and your good health than rubber yoga mats. This mat doesn’t contain phthalates or heavy metals, and its manner of production is said to be totally non-toxic. But, if being “super” green is your mantra, there is a rubber and cotton mesh mat available that comes right from a “tapped” tree that continues to thrive.
Yoga Mat Bags
What better way to protect and haul around your yoga mat and yoga supplies then in a hefty yoga mat bag in the exact size for you? If you simply tote a few accessories to your yoga class, you may want a small mat bag that is sized only slightly larger than your mat. But, if you’re a person who just has to “take it all” with you, there are big, duffel-style mat bags that can hold extra goodies like yoga blocks, towels, water bottles, extra clothing, and more!
If you’re the creative type, there are many great sites online that give instructions on how you can put together your own yoga mat bag out of silk or other fabrics. Off the rack yoga mat bags are more often than not produced from nylon, cotton, organic cotton, or hemp.