So you're really interested in yoga. But are you interested in a yoga mat made out of leather -- the same kind used for NFL footballs? With the word "BALLER" emblazoned on it, and some purely decorative, football-inspired lacing?
What if this mat cost $1,000? Would you be interested in that?
I ran the notion by a bunch of yoga devotees. Some found the whole idea of luxury items antithetical to yoga's philosophy. However, many agreed that there was a place in the yoga market for high-end and/or male-centric items.
The man behind the soon-to-be-released $1,000 yoga mat, Cedric Yau, seemed fairly indifferent to yoga philosophy when he spoke with me recently from Los Angeles. That is not to say that the 37-year-old entrepreneur, who manages a data analytics system for a New York hedge fund and has an off-Broadway producer credit to his name, is unfamiliar with the discipline.
He said he has practiced yoga for eight years, and he conceded that the use of leather doesn't exactly jibe with what many see as its principles. "If you're coming from the yoga world," he said, "there is, for some yogis, a vegan attachment."
"But," he added, "when it gets into the athlete community, we don't really see that as a primary concern."
At the BallerYoga website, the mat is pitched at "athletes who have everything and desire nothing."
That tag line comes right after a large headline that blares, "Unrolling $1,000 Yoga Mats."
The price is associated with BallerYoga's biggest mat, a 26-by-80-inch model, suitable for tall wide receivers or hulking offensive linemen -- or anyone for whom bigger, and costlier, is better. Seventy-two-inch mats will start at a mere $475 (and I was told there won't be a Kickstarter campaign, contrary to what the website indicates), but Yau is happy to lean into the bigger number precisely because it's "what seems to grab people's attention."
Asked what, exactly, makes his mat worth $1,000, he said, "Exclusivity."
Which was a sticking point for Debra Mishalove, founder of Washington's Flow Yoga Center, who said that "we strive to practice inclusivity."
There is also the matter of the Baller mats' serviceability. They are advertised as featuring "genuine grip and rapid release," of a caliber that allows Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers to zip spirals 30 yards downfield, even in wet weather. "I do believe that no surface grips better than football leather," Yau said, "so you're paying for the experience, the performance, the material; you're paying for the idea that leather would last."
Jasmine Chehrazi, founder of Washington's Yoga District collective of studios, had a different reaction: "I would personally find practicing on the skin of a dead animal kind of gnarly, in addition to being flat out contrary to the highest ethical rules of yoga," she said. "But I don't think BallerYoga is making this product for me -- it's a luxury item targeting American men, to whom football is synonymous with masculinity, patriotism and tradition."
Massachusetts-based Broga instructor Chuck Raffoni is a man who teaches yoga to other men. "I think a status symbol product is counter to the philosophy of yoga," he said. But he added, "If this mat gets more people on the mat, particularly men, then I wish them well!"
Wes Smith, who teaches Yoga for Men at Washington's Circle studio, read the promotional info and wondered if it "some kind of spoof or joke." That sentiment was echoed by Scott Shetler, who helps rate yoga mats and towels for the website Yogauthority.
"My initial reaction, looking at the website, was that this has to be a joke," Shetler said. "Especially the way it was written, emphasizing the high price tag, and sort of the way the copy reads, it almost sounds like something the Onion would write."
ActiveStyle on 09/26/2016