Can Liforme mats handle the elbows wanting to slide out, hands sliding in in Pincha and Karandavasana?

This is Ashtanga Yoga Tech Support. Real questions from the yoga community, answered.

The Question

I have my Manduka since 10 years and it's served me well, but I think I may have made it less functional by sometimes leaving it in the sun many years ago. First of all, during practice it does move and slide around on my floor (hardwood). Can work with it but it also is a bit annoying sometimes as I tend to want to rearrange it. Secondly, I have this type of shoulders where my elbows want to slide apart and my hands want so slide together in pincha and karandavasana. This leads to my mat ac…

— via r/ashtanga

Our Response

Short answer: a fresh Liforme will grip far better than a sun-cooked Manduka, so yes, it’ll help — but the elbows-out, hands-in slide isn’t really a mat problem, and the best mat in the world won’t fully fix it.

Two separate issues here. The mat sliding on your hardwood is a mat-to-floor friction failure — usually a glazed or sun-degraded bottom surface. A new grippy mat solves that, or a thin rug/yoga rug under the mat does it for free.

The elbows splaying and hands creeping together in Pincha and Karandavasana is a structural leak, not a traction one. In those postures the forearms should track parallel, shoulder-width, and the splay you’re describing is what happens when external rotation and serratus engagement give out and the load dumps into the path of least resistance. A stickier mat just lets you brace harder against a collapse you’d be better off not having. The real fixes are mechanical: a strap above the elbows to set the width, fingertips spread and pressing to fight the inward hand-walk, and dedicated shoulder external-rotation and forearm-plank strength work. Liforme for the floor-slip, drills for the splay.

More on Ashtanga Tech: Pincha Mayurasana · Karandavasana