What is a yoga mat?

Yoga mats are specially made mats to prevent hands and feet from slipping during asanas in modern yoga asana practice. Yoga teacher Angela Farmer pioneered an early variety made of rubber carpet underlayments, known as sticky mats, in 1982.
Before modern times, meditative yoga and hatha yoga were practiced on bare ground, sometimes wearing buckskin or tiger skin rugs. Modern mats for the energetic form of yoga are made of plastic, rubber, and sometimes other materials like burlap and cork, with a trade-off of cost, comfort, grip, and weight.