MoVe... choosing the right yoga mat

there are about as many yoga mat reviews on the web as there are yogis in new york city...

last thursday, i received a nice compliment from my yoga teacher regarding my poses - what a great motivation considering i only started yoga this year! after this, i figured it was time for me to get rid of that uncomfortable piece of rubber at home to replace it with a yoga mat that matches my perferences:

- lightweight (i travel a lot)

- not too soft (less than 5mm)

- smooth material-like top surface, rather than the usual 3D-rubber pattern

- eco friendly material overall

i wanted to proceed by walking into stores and taking a closer look at what's available, but found it was hard to find "yoga-mat stores". weird... seems like most things are only available online...

so, i ventured the web in search of my dream mat. what i found was tons of descriptions, reviews, online ordering portals (yes, even amazon sells them) for various brands. but, since the constitution of the mat's surface was so important to me, most of the pictures did not offer enough base for decision-making...

in this jungle of hugger mugger, jade, barefoot yoga, manduka, prana and lulu lemon, i so far tend to get the Manduka eKO Lite, because i found a lot of great reviews (with bigger pictures of the mat's surface!) and it's available for less than 40$ (free shipping!).

let's hope i found my dream mat!