hi and welcome back to my channel in
this video i'm gonna review
three different yoga mats all by the
same maker manduka
and which one you might consider
investing in the manduka PRO
PROlite or eKO superlite so stick
around
i'll explain which of these mats would
be most suitable to use at home
in the studio and for travel stick
around till the end because you'll also
get a 10% discount on all
manduka products because i love and
highly recommend them
if we haven't met yet hi i'm jaime tan
at enlightened spoon
on this channel you'll get yoga and
meditation tips and practices just like
today's
and other times you'll get nutrition
fitness and lifestyle tips
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subscribing if you want more like this
you might find this previous bedtime
yoga helpful to wind down if you've been
having trouble falling asleep recently
or this home office chair yoga during
zoom calls
to stretch and release during your work
day so
save both these videos for when you need
them okay let's get down to it
if you're brand new to yoga or have been
doing more home yoga recently
pandemic you might be thinking of
finally buying your own yoga mat
i've been practicing yoga for more than
20 years now and teaching since 2008
so i've tried and tested lots of
different mats across different yoga
studios around the world
but i always come back to my trusty old
manduka mats
and i'll tell you why i love them so
much in this video the main thing to
consider is
how much use and abuse is this mat going
to take
you want to think of how often do you
practice
once or twice a week five to six times a
week
what style of yoga do you practice a
vigorous ashtanga or vinyasa flow
or less vigorous like iyengar or yin
how sweaty do you get how much of a
puddle you're going to make on your mat
can determine how slippery that mat is
going to get
and hence your overall user experience
if you're just starting out you might be
tempted to buy a cheap mat you know that
20 to 30 dollar pvc mat
and that might last you a year or so but
at some point that cheap pvc mat is
gonna start crumbling and leaving little
bits of flakes all over you
and then you're left with all these
holes shredding through your mat
you might have experienced this at some
yoga studios with older mats
it's not a very nice experience not to
mention
how environmentally unsustainable it is
to keep buying a new mat every other
year or so
you might as well pay the money to
invest in a solid mat
and you'll never have to buy a new mat
in your life
again unless you're me and you find
every excuse to buy
yet another manduka mat but this is
essentially the premise
of the manduka PRO series of mats with
lifetime
guarantees lifetime when i first started
yoga 20 years ago i had one of those
cheap pvc mats
but then i started a five to six day a
week ashtanga mysore style practice
which is very vigorous it's lots of
jumping back
and jumping through where you're sliding
through and cross the mat because
in my case or especially when you're
starting out you're shuffling back and
you're shuffling through so
the mat starts to take a beating with
all of that friction
so i switched to the manduka they called
it the rolls-royce of yoga mats back in
the day
because of its solid construction and i
have never looked back
my yoga practice has evolved from
practicing and teaching ashtanga yoga to
vinyasa hot yin and yoga nidra
they are all varied styles but
essentially i need a durable mat
with thick enough cushioning and because
i get ultra sweaty when i practice
it needs to be able to hold up without
me slipping and sliding all over the mat
because i travel a lot too either for my
advertising producing job on shoots
well back in the day when we were
traveling or to yoga and meditation
retreats
i sometimes also need a light and
versatile mat
so you'll see why there's some method to
my madness of why i own
so many manduka mats over here we have
the PRO
and PROlight mats which are basically
the same material
but it's a different thickness in the
mat i'm not going to get into the
technicalities of
what it's made of and how
environmentally friendly it is
you can head on over to the website for
all of that information
i am just interested in the user
experience
okay the PRO mat pros
i like this because of its thickness six
millimeters thick
when we talk about cushioning we tend to
think of it as a bouncy
feel but with a yoga practice you don't
actually want a lot of bounce in your
mat as that will make standing poses
a lot more difficult this is why pilates
mats are not good for yoga
they've got way more cushioning which
you'll need for pilates core floor work
but they're terrible for a yoga practice
for yoga you actually need a solid feel
in the surface beneath you
but the floor alone is too hard so you
actually need a firm
solid base that's also got a very slight
cushion to it
it's one of those things that's really
difficult to put into words but once you
step on a manduka PRO
mat you will get it like oh
it's six millimeters thick but solid
firm yet kind of cushioned at the same
time
it's also got an amazing grip to it in
downward dog
your hands and feet simply stay in place
with some of the cheaper mats you end up
constantly having to slide the hands or
feet back to where they should be
and that distraction takes you out of
that moment in your practice
i get really sweaty in my practice but i
haven't found this to affect the grip
i know some other sweaty yogis where
this isn't the case and they slip and
slide a lot on this manduka pro
so this might vary from person to person
i practice with a yoga mat towel at
times
and i'll do another review on manduka's
eQua mat towels in my next video so stick
around for that
but the towel is really there to
sounds kind of gross but if i'm honest
soak up the sweat
i don't get a good grip with a towel on
the mat but some other people do
and they love it so try what works for
you with
any mat you will need to wash it with
soap and water to remove
that slippery film in the manufacturing
process
so do that with your new manduka it
could help to make it less slippery when
you first use it
oh and that's the other thing i love
about this mat too
it's a closed cell mat which basically
means
it doesn't absorb any water when you
wash it and
dries a lot faster most of the cheaper
pvc mats are open cell mats
and basically they act like a giant
sponge
and it's ultra gross because when you
wash them you end up squeezing tons and
tons of water and soap out of it
and wondering when it's going to stop
and if you think about it from a hygiene
point of view when you're sweating all
over the mat
and if it's open cell and absorbs all
that sweat
over time then yeah that's super gross
PRO mat cons basically there are two
main cons
it's heavy and it's expensive it's about
three and a half kilograms
or seven and a half pounds in weight
this
mama is heavy af and not something you
want to be lugging around town or
traveling with if you're only planning
on a home yoga practice without moving
the mat anywhere
then this is perfect this is what i use
at home
it's the most expensive mat in the
manduka lineup
but it's also their flagship original
mat
i've honestly had this one for more than
a decade and look
how fresh and new it still looks plus
there's a lifetime guarantee so it kind
of pays for itself over your lifetime
there used to be a cloth sticker logo in
the corner when they used to do those
but that's fallen off over time and
that's honestly the only wear and tear
that's happened to this one over
more than 10 years of use if you're
interested and cost is a consideration
you can use my promo code "enlightenedspoon" for a
10% discount on the manduka site i think it
might only be uk and eu for now but hey
if you're in the us do me a favor and
let me know if this code
also works on the us site manduka usa
sort me and my american followers out
PROlite pros
all of the pros for the pro mat are the
same on the PROlite
frankly the only difference is the
thickness this one
is four and a half millimeters thick
versus six millimeters
thick on the PRO which also means this
one is
much lighter at around 1.8 kilograms or
4 pounds in weight
does the marginal difference in
thickness affect performance
in all honesty not really this is my
go-to workhorse yoga mat
i bring it to the studio with me i take
it traveling and
even though at 1.8 kilograms it's not
the lightest mat
but it's a lot more travel friendly than
the pro is
i often fold it in a quarter so i can
pack it flat in a carry-on
and it works just fine i have to say the
extra one and a half millimeters on the
other PRO mat
does give it just that little bit more
of a luxe feel
and in yin yoga poses where you have to
hold poses for a long time
it's a lot easier on the knees with this
PROlite i find i sometimes have to
fold the mat over for some extra knee
support
i mean i have dodgy knees so maybe
that's just me the other pro with both
the pro and pro light is the huge
range of colors you get this is why i
have
two PRO mats and two PROlites even
though i don't need so many mats
once upon a time i loved the red but then
i moved into a blue phase
so color PROlite cons
i can't really think of any it might
still be slightly too heavy
or too expensive for some people but
i've got one more mat for your
consideration if weight is the issue
and if cost is the issue then hey use my
10% promo code in the description below like it
then like this video what are you
thinking so far the PRO
the PROlite tell me in the comments
below which of these two you're thinking
of
and why but wait there's more the
eKO Superlite
pros of this mat is well i wouldn't
really call this one a mat
it's more of a skin it's one millimeter
thin
so this is both its pro and its con if
the PROlite is still
too heavy for you at 1.8 kilograms then
this eKO Superlite at 900 grams
or two pounds is mega light
it's easy to fold even smaller to pack
lighter when you're traveling
but to be honest i would find this
really uncomfortable to practice on
on its own how i use this on the days
where i don't feel like lugging a huge
yoga mat
around town with me or even when i'm
traveling i want to reduce my carry-on
weight even more
i chuck this eKO Superlite in my bag
and if i end up at a yoga studio
i can use one of their rental mats and
place this as a skin on top of it
now i don't know about you but studio
mats
really gross me out i mean
especially in this current climate when
you just have no idea who else has been
sweating and
breathing all over it having a physical
barrier
between the icky rental mat and my bare
feet
makes me feel a lot more comfortable the
other pro is that it's made of
all-natural rubber so it's
environmentally friendly
the eKO Superlite cons similarly this
is also its con if you're traveling and
you only bring this with you and you're
not going to a yoga studio with rental
mats
it might not make for a super
comfortable practice especially if your
joints need a little bit more cushion
and support it's basically you and the
floor
that one millimeter rubber isn't really
doing much except for a bit of grip
maybe one of the other cons is also that
it's all
natural rubber which means it doesn't
actually last
manduka also makes this eKO series of
natural rubber mats and thicker versions
the eKO and eKOlite kind of like the
natural rubber versions of the pro and
PROlite
i had an eKO Lite once upon a time but
it disintegrated with heavy use with a
five to six day ashtanga mysore practice
at the time
so it's really not a mat i'd recommend
especially if you need something really
heavy duty
i love the PRO series but i'm not such a
fan of the eKO series
and i only love the eKO Superlite for
a very specific reason
this Superlite is great for less
frequent less vigorous use
for when you need a good skin on top of
a studio rental mat
final thoughts if you're only looking to
buy
one mat and it needs to be versatile and
mobile
i'd get the PROlite if you're never
looking to leave the house for your yoga
practice
then the PRO is a great deluxe feel that
you'll be happy practicing on at home
forever and if you want to supplement
either of these choices with a thin
skin for an even more mobile travel mat
then
i'd throw in the eKO Superlite as an
addition too
get all of these mats with a 10% discount
with my promo code link in description
below
i help you with a sweet deal manduka
gives me back a little sweet deal so we
both get the sweet deals and build a
stronger practice while we're at it
win-win so go on and hit that like
button if you like them
sweet deals stay tuned for my next video
where i'll talk about yoga mat
towels and which one might be right for
you
subscribe to this channel to find out
why you might need a yoga mat towel
yoga and meditation are a great way to
help you reduce some of the stress in
your life
but if you're at the point of exhaustion
and not sure how else to make a change
before you
really burn out i may be able to help
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i'll put that link in description below
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