We Caught up With the Founder of Liforme - Blog - Yogamatters

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We caught up with James Armitage, the founder of Liforme to find out how the Liforme yoga mat was born and what it is that makes it so unique. Tell us about how your yoga journey began and where it is now? I took my first yoga class in 1996. It was at the Iyengar Yoga Institute in London and I actually went with my mum (not at all an embarrassing moment for me as a teenager!). The initial impetus to try yoga was to help me deal with some back problems I had started to develop as a young adult (a misspent youth on skateboards was to blame, according to the doctors!). From there, the development of my own yoga practice was a very gradual process, and one that came pretty naturally. When I got to university, I was drawn to the yoga classes offered at student-friendly rates, and it turned out to be quite a good hangover cure. Then whilst working as a young lawyer, when my boss wasn’t looking, I’d unchain myself from my desk and escape to yoga at the nearby gym. From 2004-2010, I practised mostly Ashtanga, and mostly with a very experienced and dedicated teacher called Heather. She really inspired me to get more into my own practice, and it made me understand why that special connection with a teacher seems to be where most people find a turning point in their own yoga practice. My somewhat casual practice then (at my gym or occasionally I’d go to a studio) was obviously a great antidote to far too much desk-work (and my other more fun, but not so healthy, pastimes), but I could somehow tell there was more to it than just that. It wasn’t until around 2007-ish, that I really became aware of the rapidly growing ‘Yoga scene’ in London and started noticing lots more yoga studios popping up. Before that, there wasn’t much of a scene, or maybe I was just oblivious to it. Anyway, somehow yoga gradually became a part of my life and the significance of the practice grew for me without really needing to push. In more recent years, I’ve also had many more ‘turning points’ with several other wonderful teachers, to whom I’m very grateful. These days, I try to do at least some asana practice every day, but that could be just 10 or 20 minutes in Read more »