Last week, one of my Monday night students, CJ, suggested that he had an innovation for me. He had been thinking about the way that we roll up our yoga mats, and something struck him about the hygiene and ineffectiveness of it.
We have our mats on the floor, and as clean (or not) as the floors can be, the nature of the sticky mats are that it picks up dirt and dust. When you roll up your mat from one end to the other after practice, the dirt facing side of the mat rolls into the human contact side. So when you next unroll it to practice, you are confronted with dirt and dust (ew!).
CJ suggested folding the mat in half first, and then from the folded edge, start rolling up the mat. I LOVED THIS IDEA! The dirty side stays with the dirty side, and the side that we put our hands, feet and body stays free of the dirt. I tried to explain this to another student afterwards but she helpfully suggested that I need to make my explanation a bit clearer (thanks Danielle!). So I've put together an info graphic so you can hopefully see what I mean. I tried it with my thicker Jade mat, and it also works.
In my corporate days as a productivity consultant, we would group ideas like this into a category called "Just Do It!". The benefit you gain requires zero investment (just a slight tweak in the way you do things). So there you have it, how to roll up a yoga mat. Thanks CJ!
