Meet Peter Sterios, the founder of Manduka. With over four decades in the global yoga community, Peter has made his mark as a teacher, author, entrepreneur, and philanthropist.
Peter stumbled upon yoga in university and deepened his practice under Shandor Remete, a master teacher and student of BKS Iyengar. Initially, yoga complemented his other sports like basketball, skiing, and rugby. However, after an injury, yoga became his main focus. With no outward path to rely on or the physical practices he had learned, he turned inward and discovered new teachers: Gravity and Grace, now the title of his award-winning book.
This journey led to the creation of Manduka. Discover more about Peter's journey and how Manduka came to be in the interview below.
How did you first get introduced to yoga, and what drew you to it?
To this day, the truth is I don’t really know… I was a student rushing though a university rec center late to class and happened to get a glimpse through a partially-open door into a group exercise room of a bunch of young people doing yoga, something that I had never seen before. Being curious, I paused, pushed the door, and right in the middle of their class, asked the teacher what the class was and she replied “It’s yoga, do you want to try it?” I said yes, and as they say, the rest is history!
Who were your early influences or mentors in yoga, and how did they impact your practice?
For the first four years of practicing yoga, I didn’t really know what I was doing. The exercises in class were painful while doing it, but I felt great afterwards. I wasn’t that serious about the practice, and it was just something I felt would help the other sports I was involved with at the time (competitive basketball, skiing, and rugby) That changed when I moved to New Zealand for rugby, got injured, and eventually met Shandor Remete, a master yoga teacher and senior student of BKS Iyengar, who I would study with for the next 20 years.
What inspired you to transition from being a yoga practitioner to a yoga teacher and entrepreneur?
Pure coincidence – I never intended to be a teacher, but when I moved back to the US, the small California coastal town I ended up in had no yoga classes. As I made friends there, many of them were curious about yoga, especially when they learned I’d lived in India for a year and studied yoga with a master teacher. They strongly encouraged me to teach, which I did.
In many ways, becoming an entrepreneur was the same, a string of coincidences… In 1997, on his teaching tour to my yoga studio in San Luis Obispo, Shandor introduced me to the early version of the Black Mat and strongly encouraged me to start a business. Using the mat the first time, I knew there would be a huge potential for it and felt the opportunity to start a new business was worth the risk. I knew nothing about running a yoga mat company but once I made the decision things just naturally flowed and I learned “on the job”! Those early days of Manduka were so much fun for me, filled with long hours working from home, and attending Yoga Journal Conferences as a teacher and also a vendor, meeting wonderful people, studio owners and students, that would become the foundation for the Manduka brand and its growing community of customers.
What inspired you to create Manduka?
The unbelievable coincidences that literally dropped a one-of-a-kind high-performance product on my doorstep, and included a personal introduction to the factory representative in Germany, and the vision and immediate realization I had of how unique this mat was, how it was so unlike anything else in a market of full of mediocre yoga mats, and how big that market was becoming, even back in the 1990’s.
Can you share the story behind the name 'Manduka'?
The Sanskrit word “manduka” means frog in English, which had a direct correlation with how “grippy” those first mats were, and what a powerful feeling it was to practice on a mat with such firm support, coupled with the perfect amount of cushion that was so forgiving on boney knees, ankles, and spinal vertebra. The name was also in honor of my teacher Shandor who first came to the US with an early version of the mat and introduced me to the factory. The name showed up in my awareness also because he taught a pose called “mandukasana” and every time he spoke that word with his thick Hungarian accent, it made me laugh a little – the way he pronounced it was so funny and it made me smile.
How did you go about designing the first Manduka PRO ™ yoga mat?
The original mat had been designed as the base for artificial synthetic turf (known as “Astroturf”) and some of the surface properties were not ideal for traction on hardwood floors, and sometimes for friction underneath sweaty hands and feet. So I worked with the factory to redesign the top and bottom surfaces textures to improve the mats performance for yoga. Later, there were a few other requests from customers who complained about the weight (3.2 kg compared to 0.9 kg for the typical mat during that time), and also there was a growing demand for a different color since the “Black Mat” (what we called the original version of today’s “PRO” mats) was only available in black in those days. So within two years, we introduced a second mat that was lighter and purple in color, which we called the “PurpleLITE Mat” (which was the original version of today’s “PROlite” mats).
What was the reaction of the yoga community to your first product?
Incredible… Our reputation spread quickly through word-of-mouth, our satisfied customers becoming a growing team of unsolicited ambassadors. Our biggest problem in those days was keeping the mats in stock and we were frequently on backorder. It took us a couple years to figure how to keep the production, shipping, handling and distribution running smoothly.
Why and how did you use a factory in Germany, coming from US? This was not a common practice in that time.
No it wasn't. Using the factory there was through a personal connection Shandor had with a yoga teacher in Frankfurt, who had a close friend working for the German factory that made the mats. This relationship was extremely fortunate for me and the beginning days of Manduka.
You wrote a book, ‘Gravity and Grace’. Who is the intended audience for it?
Anyone who’s interested in the healing power yoga promises. Many people know what a great workout yoga can be, but the practice of yoga offers so much more, and gives us the tools for physical, mental, and spiritual health and wellness.
What inspired you to write the book and what message do you hope readers take away from it?
I approached the writing of my book as a nonmystical attempt to describe the mystical healing powers found in the practice of yoga, particularly those of the subtle body, using simple language and personal analogies. My desire was to provide an accessible learning perspective for any student, at any level, practicing any style of yoga, so they could see for themselves the wonders of gravity and grace that revealed themselves to me.
Can you tell us a little bit more about the book and what readers can expect?
I wrote my book to lend added dimension to the next leg of anyone’s yoga journey, with a new perspective that had the potential to transform your practice. In it, you will not find advocacy for any particular yoga style or tradition. It is not a how-to manual instructing you in how to shape your body into the ideal pose in the ideal way. While it does offer instruction centered on common poses, the instruction found in it is less about how to “do” the poses and more about how to “be” and “feel” in the poses, engaging all levels of yourself—physical, mental, and spiritual—while utilizing both of your yoga bodies—the physiology of flesh and bone and the movement of subtle energy. In fact, my book aims to teach you how to let yourself be “guided by” your own subtle energy as you move on your mat.
Are there specific practices from the book that you recommend for someone new to exploring their subtle body and healing through yoga?
Yes, there are. In Part Five – PRACTICE ESSENTIALS, I describe new ways to experience your practice. In these chapters, I teach you how to cultivate awareness of the flow of subtle body energy in common poses on your mat, and I share key principles that apply in any yoga pose. When you incorporate these principles into your regular practice, your sensitivity to subtle body forces will naturally increase and strengthen your relationship to the life force you’re born with. My hope is that it will deepen your experience of yoga—and your experience of life.
Tell us a little about your European tour and the studios you are partnering with.
My book was released at the end of 2019, four months before the pandemic lockdowns and our original European book tour was canceled. So, this is my first trip back to Europe in 5 years. I’m halfway through the tour so far, having already taught in England, France, and Greece.
The next program will be in the Netherlands AUG 3-4 at Yoga Moves in Utrecht, where I will be teaching a two-day program of yoga workshops, with a book-signing and readings from my book.
Following that, I will travel to Iceland to lead a five-day yoga and meditation wellness retreat AUG 8-12 at Hvammsvik Hot Springs Nature Resort, a short 45-minute drive north of Reykjavík.
Connect with Peter Sterios
Gravity and grace — join an upcoming special lecture and book signing along with a weekend of workshops featuring Peter Sterios, internationally-recognized yoga teacher, founder of Manduka and now, award-winning author.
Hosted on August 3rd at Yoga Moves | Utrecht, The Netherlands, Peter will share his journey and talk about his book “Gravity & Grace: How to Awaken Your Subtle Body and the Healing Power of Yoga.”
The two-day accompanying workshop, August 3rd and 4th, will focus on intuitive ways to find balance and softness in your yoga practice and help you create a yoga-inspired guide for living and healing. The first day is dedicated to the subtle body and the second day is dedicated to dynamic practice.
These events are open to everyone and for yoga teachers, the workshops contribute 10 Contact Hours for YACEP.
For more information and to register, head directly to Yoga Moves.
And to get to know more about Peter, the book and his trainings and events, follow or visit levityoga.com.
