Floor surface?

Hi Sunny, I seem to have the same problem at times. The carpet does require your feet to balance in an awkward way. I find that its easier to balance with a hard surface, but then a yoga mat is soft too….oh well.

For what its worth, I did ask one of my teachers about different mat thicknesses. As in, does mat thickness matter? Her response was that the thicker the mat, the less connected to the floor you become. You are standing on a flexible squishy pad. Your feet won’t connect the same way to foor if you use a thicker mat vs a thinner mat. Your muscles may overwork in their attempt to compensate for the thickness.
Kind of like trying to balance on a sponge vs balancing on a laminate floor…
I think this applies to thick carpeting. You are not connected to a hard surface. Your feet are supported in a different way by thick carpeting than they are on a hard surface. I personally think that your yoga postures will be affected on a thick carpet because from what I understand, yoga postures are built from the ground – up. This means that your foundation starts with a strong connection between your foot and the earth/floor/flat surface. This allows your foot to spread out and support you naturally, rather than having some arch suppport from the carpet and from altering your toe position which happens on thick cushioned carpet. From this initial foot position, your ankle takes a certain alignment, followed by your leg, hip, spine, neck, head…if you have a poor grounding, your entire posture is affected.
My personal opinion? Stay off the thick carpeting. Replace your thick carpeting in that room with say, an inexpensive laminate flooring. I think you really need a good foot/ground connection and I just don’t think you’ll be building a strong foundation if you are a beginner attempting these poses on thick carpeting.

Freia

I guess I come from a land of cushy wall to wall carpeting!
Here in North America, a typical carpeted floor is made of a subfloor, covered with a thick underpad, covered with a plush thick carpet. I think that if you put a thin board between you and the carpet, it will be really unstable. I know, I’ve tried it. Whenever you step on a different part of the board, it will sink differentially into the carpeting and the whole board becomes really, really unstable. Like trying to balance on a surf board in the ocean unstable, it slips around, shifts completely depending on where you are stepping. You’d really be better off even practicing without a mat IMHO, because every step you take on a thin mat without a board is going to sink down into the carpet/underlay and will cause your mat to move around quite a bit. Residential carpet practices out here really emphasizes plushness and that “sinking into the carpet” feeling!

Replacing flooring isn’t really a big deal with respect to cost and/or effort — depending on the subfloor and how the underlay is placed, you can actually save both the carpet and the underlay, roll them up, and lay down laminate flooring yourself at a cost of around a dollar and a half a square foot. An average room size of 120 square feet would cost a minimal amount, and if you move, you can pay a minimal amount to have the carpet/underlay reinstalled. But then again, that’s just me.

Good luck with whatever choice you make!