When you have to BYOM, carry it with ease!
How do we find the most efficient way to BYOM: Bring Your Own Mat?
This is a question many of us have been trying to answer. It’s become something of a familiar story, a contemporary conundrum for the modern-day yoga practitioner.
These days, we’re bringing our own mat to yoga classes outdoors or even to the studio to comply with the latest health and safety recommendations while trying to stay dedicated to our yoga practice.
Yoga student and architect Emi Shiga is one of those people, but she’s done more than simply ask the question. She’s found an answer that is elegant, affordable, and actually works! The solution is the Roll Up and Carry Yoga Mat Carrier. She sells it through her creative online store: Archi-Select. It is rapidly becoming a go-to solution for yogis on the go! Her story illustrates just how necessity inspires invention and how our skillset in one area of our live can apply to both our profession and our passion.
The Inspiration for the Roll Up and Carry Yoga Mat Carrier
From Drawings to Downward Facing Dog
Emi’s professional life as an architect provided some of the inspiration and the solution for finding the tools to carry a yoga mat without fumbling and stumbling. In order to showcase their work, architects have to regularly carry large drawings to meetings. While some people go the route of securing their drawings with big rubber bands, brown paper and tape, this can definitely be clumsy, especially for those who want to multi-task while in transit and pick up a latte on the way to a meeting. According to Emi, “It’s not easy to hold drawings and ride the subway….And I really want to use my hands. Before I go back to the office, I want to stop by a coffee shop.” So she created the Roll Up and Carry to be able to be able to easily carry her drawings over her shoulder….and have both hands free to carry a cup of coffee, reach for subway fare, or just feel more mobile.
In the product development phase, Emi put her architectural skills to use through developing technical drawings and making prototypes and researching manufactures willing to cultivate a relationship with a small business.
Emi realized that her yoga mat is similar in size and shape to her architectural drawings so she decided to try the Roll Up and Carry solution she developed for drawings for her yoga mat. As a busy working mom, Emi finds that she wants her transit from home to yoga class to the rest of her day to be as simple as possible. When she considered her criteria for what she needed in terms of yoga mat transportation and performance, her design of the Roll Up and Carry made an obvious choice to serve as the Roll Up and Carry Yoga Mat Carrier.
Criteria & Solutions for an Effective Yoga Mat Carrier
There are a number of factors Emi needs to account for in her life many of us may find that we also relate to in the whirlwind of scheduling our own lives—and yoga practices. First, she doesn’t want to keep shifting items from purse to yoga mat bag…so she really doesn’t want to have to carry a bulky yoga mat bag. This means she wants a solution that allows her to easily carry her everyday bag along with her yoga mat. As a busy mom, she needs to be able to run errands, shop after class, and maybe even pick up that cup of coffee or bottle of juice. Emi wants something that is comfortable to carry (even to the park), a strap that fits securely without pinching, binding, or slipping. She also wants it to be easy to use, self-contained, and convenient.
The Roll Up and Carry Yoga Mat Carrier fulfills all of this. As a busy entrepreneur, Emi is not only the creator of this innovative product, she’s also the model customer. She’s been using it for yoga, showing friends, and gaining a following. If you try it out, you may just join the converted!
Archi-Select Online
In addition to her creativity with the Roll Up and Carry Yoga Mat Carrier, Emi’s online store features other items she has created that combine fun and functionality from bags to clothes to mugs. Visit https://archi-select.com.
Felicia Tomasko has spent more of her life practicing Yoga and Ayurveda than not. She first became introduced to the teachings through the writings of the Transcendentalists, through meditation, and using asana to cross-train for her practice of cross-country running. Between beginning her commitment to Yoga and Ayurveda and today, she earned degrees in environmental biology and anthropology and nursing, and certifications in the practice and teaching of yoga, yoga therapy, and Ayurveda while working in fields including cognitive neuroscience and plant biochemistry. Her commitment to writing is at least as long as her commitment to yoga. Working on everything related to the written word from newspapers to magazines to websites to books, Felicia has been writing and editing professionally since college. In order to feel like a teenager again, Felicia has pulled out her running shoes for regular interval sessions throughout Southern California. Since the very first issue of LA YOGA, Felicia has been part of the team and the growth and development of the Bliss Network.