Extensive stretching of muscles, tendons, and ligaments, resulting in strains, tears, and bodily injuries that may take longer to heal, are other disadvantages of heat yoga. Therefore, people with heart disease, heat intolerance, and other heat-related illnesses should avoid heat yoga (. Chances are that your studio or gym has a mat that you can borrow (or rent it for a dollar or two), but that you can buy a rug for less than twenty dollars. If you like yoga, you may eventually want to upgrade your mat; some of the more expensive models come with better grip or lifetime warranties.
And while it's good to have a mat for the extra knee pad in certain postures and to delimit your room space, especially in a crowded classroom, technically you don't even have to use a mat. Mats are a fairly new invention; they came about in the 1950s, and yogis had been practicing yoga in some form for hundreds of years by then. If you run out of mat, people will think you're taking your hat off tradition.
