There is a particular kind of humiliation that only happens in a packed yoga studio: your hands slowly sliding forward in downward dog while you smile at your neighbor like everything is fine. I lived that scene years ago on a bargain-bin mat that cost less than my post-class smoothie, and I remember thinking, surely the mat isn’t the problem. Reader, the mat was absolutely the problem. Since then I have practiced on, sweated on, rolled up, and thrown out more mats than I care to admit — fifteen at last count, not including the loaners my coaching team keeps…
