Email This Article To A Friend
There’s no doubt about it, Mazatlan is a two matt city! I’ve happily traded my lovely yoga studio in Toronto, Moksha, with its even wooden floors and controlled temperature climate, for all the different surfaces, and weather conditions a city on the Pacific ocean offers.
I bought one matt at Wal-Mart. Then I discovered that doing yoga on a concrete precipice overlooking the ocean requires two mats. One is the first layer to collect dirt and dust, the other matt is to do your practice on. Never mind, a single matt is just too hard on the knees and wrists. So back to Wal-Mart.
Two mats are working well on the tiled floor of Nadine’s private deck stretching out over the ocean. Those sunset yoga classes are among my favorite. Tricky to balance when pelicans fly by, the surf is pounding and sky is turning a mellow orange. You really have to concentrate on your “tree” and stay focused! Maureen Geraghty, Mazatlan Yoga is our bubbly, experienced yoga instructor, who challenges us and makes us smile for one hour. And being true yogis we like to share after class – share cheese, wine, stories, shopping tips, and the latest restaurants
The local bed and breakfast, Casa De Leyendas, offers it’s tiled roof for sunrise yoga . That surface also requires two mats.
Then, there is my local Mexican yoga studio, Mukande, and their substrate is tiles as well, but rather uneven. Classes are a total delight, all in Spanish, and not really following the classic hatha flow, so it keeps me on my toes and I peek frequently to see if I’m are in the right pose. I’m leaning the Spanish words for inhale, exhale, left, right, slowly, so that’s a double lesson for me! Another bonus is after class we all hug each other (heart to heart) and say gracias.
Rolling up two mats, banding them, and carrying them around is like transporting a enormous exploding sausage. I needed a yoga bag made to carry two mats. Hidden in the back streets is an old man with an old sewing machine who does alterations for all the locals. All the women bring them their tight jeans to be shortened. I took a pair of my husband’s shorts to be mended and he charged $1! He’s speaks no English, but he would be my man to sew the yoga bag.
I arrive with two yoga mats for measuring, and a water bottle to be incorporated into the design- all set for my pantomime show, complete with drawings. He does not carry any fabric, or straps, or zippers, he just fixes clothes people bring to him. That was conveyed relatively quickly. Now I’m faced with going to a Mexican fabric store. On my own!
I’ve never been in a fabric store on my own in my entire life. I detest sewing, I have serious spatial problems, and I’m the person who looks at a pattern upside down and inside out. I know exactly where to go – fabric stores are popular in Mazatlan and I’m certain the Mazatlan women are very talented seamstresses. I’m surrounded by huge bolts of cloth at least 12 feet high, and I stagger around, reminding myself to breath. Finally I settle on one fabric that I know I can wash, but is sturdy enough to hold two mats. I have no clue of how much material I need. A short Mexican man pops up from the bolts of cloth, sweeps off a table, and is prepared to cut. I make a wild guess and he rips away.
I take the cloth. He takes it back. We have a gentle tug of war. Eventually I figure it out. I’m not allowed to keep the cloth, he gives me a ticket and points to where the material will be kept for me . I go to purchase strap material but I’m smarter now and simply wait for the ticket. If I had wanted buttons, a zipper, a needle, I would have ended up a handful of tickets. Next step, is to cash out. You hand all your tickets over, and pay. You get your tickets back proving you paid, and you line up again to collect your goods. It’s a three step process, very common in Mazatlan!
I return to the hills and my man is waiting. More drawings, more demo’s of me inserting yoga mats, he re-draws my drawing, we smile, we hug, we agree to pick up mats in two weeks, not that he wouldn’t have made it for the next day ,but it was the Christmas holidays.
January 9 dawns and I can’t wait to see the bag and how this translation has been deciphered. My man is sick, at el doctor.
I return in three days. He’s all smiles and proudly presents the yoga bag. It’s a work of art, it’s absolutely perfect. Elasticized pocket is there for a water bottle, the execution could not be better and neither one of us understood each other – yet we did. We hug, we say adios, and he and his wife stand at the top of their street and wave to me as I descend the steep hill. I turn the corner, and take one last look, they are still their waving, so I do too.
Cost: fabric $4
Sewing $10
Experience: priceless.
There’s even a ripple effect. Several Canadian women volunteer with an Indian tribe who make their living sewing various items and selling them wherever they can.
The group was yearning for a new product they could sew and sell to the ex-pats. The Mujeres Trabajando Sewing Group has borrowed my yoga bag for a prototype and I wish them many,many sales!
