Why Your Mat Stopped Gripping

Six causes, in order of likelihood. Four of them are fixable this afternoon.

1. Skin oil and sweat residue

By far the most common. Every practice leaves behind skin oils and, as sweat evaporates, mineral salts. Both build a film. It is invisible and it is slick.

How to tell: the mat feels smooth or faintly slippery even when completely dry. Run a hand across it — it should feel like the material, not like a surface.

Fix: wash it properly. Water alone removes the salts; you need soap to remove the oils. A few drops of washing-up liquid in a litre of warm water, wipe both sides, then wipe again with clean water to remove the soap. Dry flat, out of the sun, fully.

For a cotton mat that can be machine washed, just wash it.

Prevent it: damp wipe weekly, soap wash monthly.

2. Soap residue from cleaning it

The ironic one. You cleaned the mat and now it is worse.

How to tell: it got slippery immediately after a cleaning, and it feels faintly waxy.

Fix: rinse-wipe it two or three times with clean water and nothing else. Dry fully.

Prevent it: always finish a soap clean with a clean-water pass. And never use anything with a conditioning agent — fabric softener on a cotton mat, or any "moisturising" soap, coats the fibres and destroys grip. Fabric softener on a cotton mat is the single worst thing you can do to it.

3. Essential oils, sprays, and cleaning products

Many commercial mat sprays contain oils. Many home recipes are mostly oil.

How to tell: you have been using a spray, and grip has declined gradually since you started.

Fix: wash it properly with soap and water, twice. It may take two or three washes to strip an accumulated oil layer.

Prevent it: water for weekly cleaning, mild soap monthly, nothing else. A mat does not need to smell of lavender and every oil you put on it makes it more slippery.

4. It is new and has not worn in

Rubber mats especially arrive with a manufacturing film — a release agent from the mould — that sits on the surface and is genuinely slippery. Cotton mats arrive stiff, with a closed weave and any residual finishing on the fibres.

How to tell: it has always been slippery, since the day it arrived.

Fix: for rubber, wash it two or three times with soap and water over the first fortnight, and use it. The film comes off with a combination of washing and abrasion, usually within twenty sessions.

For cotton, wash it once and then use it. The weave opens and the surface texture develops with use and washing.

Do not use a coarse abrasive or salt scrub on a rubber mat, which is sometimes suggested. It works and it also removes material.

5. The surface has worn smooth

Real wear, and it is not reversible.

How to tell: the mat grips fine everywhere except in two patches where the hands go and one where the front foot lands. Those patches look and feel visibly different — shinier, smoother, possibly thinner.

This is normal after several years of regular use on a rubber, PVC or TPE mat. The surface texture that provided grip has been abraded away.

Fix: none. You can flip a reversible mat and get a second life out of it. Otherwise, this is a mat approaching the end.

How long it should take: four to ten years on a good rubber or PVC mat with regular practice. Eighteen months to three years on a cheap foam one.

6. It is not the mat

Worth checking before spending money.

Your hands are wet and the mat is not absorbent. No sealed-surface mat grips through a film of sweat. That is a property of the material, not a fault. Either dry your hands, put an absorbent layer over the top, or change to an absorbent surface.

Your weight is too far forward. If the hands slide in Downward Dog on a mat that grips everywhere else, the cause is usually load distribution. Send your weight back towards the feet until the arms are struts rather than legs. The slide stops.

The floor is the problem, not the surface. If the whole mat is travelling across the floor, the grip issue is underneath, not on top. A mat with no rubber base will creep on polished wood or tile. Put a rug under it, or use a mat with a grippy base.

Your hands are dry and dusty. Some people, in winter, have hands dry enough that they slide on any surface. Wash your hands before practice; it makes a genuine difference.

The diagnosis, in order

1. Wipe a hand across a dry mat. Does it feel like the material or like a film? Film → wash it.
2. Has it been slippery since new? Yes → wash and wear in.
3. Have you been using a spray or oil? Yes → strip it with soap, twice.
4. Is it slippery only in the hand and foot patches? Yes → it is worn out.
5. Is the whole mat sliding on the floor? Yes → base problem, not surface.
6. Are your hands wet? Yes → material problem, not fault.

Most people are on step one and have never washed their mat properly.