Oh how I wish I could do yoga every day. OK, I suppose technically I could if I did my own sun salutations or made up my own routines but somehow that never seems to happen. So, alas, I schlep out to the gym to flop about on the dirty floor with a bunch of other people in a big usually cold room. It's really not that bad but it's a long way to Zen. Anyhow, I do bring my own mat because I am generally grossed out by other people and dirty floors and gym yuck and I also just happen to have one. Of course rolling your mat out on said dirty floor then rolls back onto itself when I leave so I am destined to collect dirt and gack anyhow. Recently my mat was shabby unchic with dust and road salt from the car and heaven knows what else and really needed a bath. But how to clean it? I looked it up on the trusty internets and found numerous people saying wash it in the washing machine. Could it be so easy?! Yes, but there's one catch I found (we'll get to that in a minute).
So I popped my mat into my machine with a little home-made laundry soap (see previous post!) and set it to cold and left the lid open so it wouldn't go to the spin cycle. Amazingly I remembered to go back and run it through a rinse cycle (again skip the spin cycle) and I remembered to go retrieve it after it was rinsed. It stayed in one piece and looked shiny and new! Yay! I hung it in the bathroom to dry. When it seemed dry-ish I draped it over a couple of laundry baskets to make sure it got enough air circulation. Seemed I'd found a quick way to clean when I assumed it would be a big hassle. Now...the catch. It takes a seriously long time to dry. Like a looooong time. In my case, longer than I allowed because when I proudly rolled out my fresh, sanitized mat on the dusty grubby floor and plunked down on it, my socks and yoga pants got wet. As class progressed I felt like I was going to slip as I squeezed out more water with every downward dog. I didn't really create a puddle or any danger to myself or those around me, but I now know I need to use a back-up mat until I'm really sure the washer-washed one isn't wet. Despite my learning curve, I'm happy with the results, a clean mat that even has a renewed 'stickiness' to it and a few fewer germs to boot!
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