Yoga Mat for Balancing: Which is Best?

One of yoga practice’s great gifts is its emphasis on balancing. Poses such as Vrksasana (Tree Pose) are an integral part of almost every form of practice. The ability to balance is a crucial part of healthy aging, and it can be helpful to develop balancing skills as early as possible. Conventional wisdom has it that a thinner Yoga Mat (⅛ inch or less, or 1.5mm to 3.5mm) is most conducive to staying on our feet during one-legged balancing poses. The thinner the mat, the less your standing foot is going to need to make adjustments. But is that optimal? After almost 40 years of yoga teaching, my unequivocal answer is: it depends. So what is the best yoga mat for balancing?

The Best Yoga Mat for Balancing Depends on Your Intention

Counterintuitive as it may sound, the mat I usually use for teaching yoga—even in classes where we practice lots of standing balancing poses—is the Ultimate Cushion Yoga Mat. At ⅜ inch, it’s the thickest mat Hugger Mugger offers. (I alternate between this mat and the Para Rubber Yoga Mat (3/16″)).

Why would I want to make it harder on myself? I practice balancing poses to cultivate and maintain my balancing skills. Sure, I can more easily perform balancing poses on a thinner mat, but I want to challenge my balance. That’s the way we build balancing skills—by balancing in challenging situations. So, to accomplish my objective in practicing balancing poses, the best yoga mats for balancing are the thicker, more challenging ones.

Because I have a longstanding relationship with Hugger Mugger Yoga Products, I’ve bought many mats from them over the years. I find that balancing on different types of surfaces—and mats of different thicknesses—is important for building balancing skills. So sometimes I practice on thick mats, and sometimes I practice on thin mats. I also place my mats on various surfaces. While wood and surfaces such as concrete are the most reliable, I think it’s helpful to practice balancing on soft, squishy surfaces, such as carpeting, as well.

It’s important to respect where you are. If your balance is generally unstable, practicing on a thinner Yoga Mat is a good place to start. Once you feel stable in balancing poses on a thin mat, then you can begin challenging your balance on a thicker mat.

Balancing On and Off the Yoga Mat

Practicing yoga on various mat types and floor types is not the only way to hone your balance. Here are some suggestions for taking your balancing practice off the mat:

• Practice balancing in different types of shoes—thick soles, cushy soles, thin soles, etc. Unless you regularly wear heels, I wouldn’t recommend practicing yoga in them. (For that matter I would recommend avoiding or minimizing wearing heels in general, because of the havoc they wreak on the integrity of your musculoskeletal system.)
• Practice outdoors. Hiking trails are rarely completely level. Walking, and practicing balancing poses, on uneven surfaces challenge your feet to balance in a different way. Next time you take a hike, stop for a minute or so and practice a one-legged balancing pose—Tree Pose seems appropriate when you’re in the woods—on an uneven surface.

If you’d like to learn more about the elements of developing stable balance, here’s a recent blog.

About Charlotte Bell

Charlotte Bell discovered yoga in 1982 and began teaching in 1986. Charlotte is the author of Mindful Yoga, Mindful Life: A Guide for Everyday Practice and Yoga for Meditators, both published by Rodmell Press. Her third book is titled Hip-Healthy Asana: The Yoga Practitioner’s Guide to Protecting the Hips and Avoiding SI Joint Pain (Shambhala Publications). She writes a monthly column for CATALYST Magazine and serves as editor for Yoga U Online. Charlotte is a founding board member for GreenTREE Yoga, a non-profit that brings yoga to underserved populations. A lifelong musician, Charlotte plays oboe and English horn in the Salt Lake Symphony and folk sextet Red Rock Rondo, whose DVD won two Emmy awards.