New! Flashback Fridays

Now that this blog is available as a paid subscription for Kindle users I want to make sure subscribers get their money’s worth. Since the RSS feed provides them with only the five most recent posts but I’ve been posting since May 28, 2012 (Hey! Happy blog anniversary to me!) I want to make some of the earlier articles available as well to the Kindle crowd.

So Flashback Friday posts will highlight popular articles from the WBK archive. Today’s blast from the past is How To Roll A Yoga Mat:

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Friday Faves 11-23-12: Charity Edition

This week’s quick Friday Faves highlight a few homegrown nontraditional charitable groups. Because they are grassroots startups and/or dedicated to providing a charitable service that is outside of the box your contribution will probably not be tax-deductible. However, donating the cost of a latte and a scone will do a lot of good:

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How To Roll A Yoga Mat

“What do you mean?! I just roll it up, right?” 

That’s what most people do: start at one end of the mat and roll until the other end is reached. But think about what that means:

– Your yoga mat has two sides: when you unroll it for use one side lies flat on the floor of whatever studio/gym/living room/etc in which you are exercising (or outside on the ground). You put your hands/feet/knees/butt/head on the other side.

– When class is over, you pick up the mat at one end, curl the mat end under or over and start rolling – either way you are rolling the two sides into contact with each other!

– Whatever was on the floor/rug/ground underneath the mat is now being transferred onto the side of the mat you will use next time to be in contact with your body (and that’s assuming you have a pattern or other indicator of which side is “up” – otherwise you might be using the “down” side up next time).

Unless you wash or thoroughly wipe down both sides of your mat after every class you are only using it for padding/traction, not for preventing contact with a multi-use floor of unknown cleanliness.

So instead of rolling up the mat starting from one end, do it this way:

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