I've been blessed that my passion for storytelling allowed me to explore our planet from the icy Himalayas to the deserts of Afghanistan. I've wandered ancient mosques that Rumi prayed in, searched for possibly extinct woodpeckers, worked alongside Great White Shark researchers off of South Africa, been shot at in Iraq and violently seasick on the Bering sea. Somewhere along the way I won an emmy; but it wasn't the accolades that stayed with me -it was the people I met and the staggering beauty of our Earth that continue to inspire.

How does all this circle back to yoga? Everytime I packed my lunchbox to head off on a new adventure, I brought my yoga mat. With the closest gym/ yoga studio hundreds of miles away, there was always a 24 inch x 70 inch rectangle of space—a boat deck, a tent floor, a little patch of grass—where I could unroll my mat and move. Over time, that mat stopped being gear and became a companion. And eventually sparked a series of why's:

-Why was my mat made with harmful PVC material?

-Why are most yoga straps nylon or polyester?

-Why was my yoga towel so synthetic that I could feel the oily petro-chemicals against my skin?

I kept asking myself:If yoga is about connection, why is the gear in most yoga studios so disconnected from the Earth?

In 2020, Covid hit, the world stopped and we were all pulled out of our "normal" lives and into the unknown of our own human potential. Like many, I faced a choice: sink into isolation and despair; or build something meaningful from the pause.

Kinshē began with a hand-dyed yoga strap made from 100% hemp. Naturally antimicrobial. Pliant but strong. A perfect balance between tautness and stretch. Next up were yoga mats. Those took more than a year of mind-numbing sourcing -but eventually we tracked down the advanced grip, recyclable yoga mats we offer today. At a glance, we offer only blue and green, but we spent more than a month color testing and comparing swatches until we found the deep, rich hues we were looking for. Did you know that each color has 100's of RGB variations to choose from? Neither did we, and we hope the manufacturer forgives us for being the customer at an ice cream shop who needs to try every flavor before ordering.

My Kinshē partner, Ashley, took on mat sprays. Working with a little factory at the foot of the Canadian escarpment we custom blended pure essential oils from forest and flowers to create two subtle scents: "Yin" to calm and "Kindle" to energize. From Istanbul, we sourced premium Turkish cotton yoga towels in nature-inspired colors.

Now, we’re launching The Ridgemat—a three-dimensional yoga mat designed to activate endorphins and engage the body before movement even begins.

My travels showed me the Earth isn’t flat.

-why our yoga mats should be?

Yoga Different,

Ethan