Rachel Dobronyi isn’t the kind of person you can describe neatly in a sentence. She’s a part-time DJ, an athlete, a business owner, a free spirit. She loves doing things that are new and a little bit scary. Like, once, she sailed across the Pacific Ocean with a couple of guys she didn’t know prior to the trip. In 2021, she started a business, Kāma, which makes folding floor mats, even though she had minimal knowledge of product manufacturing. An avid mountain biker, snowboarder and friend of Flylow, Dobronyi mostly lives out of her custom-built Mitsubishi Delica, and manages an Airbnb cabin in Sierra City, California. Life as a nomad, she says, makes her feel free. We spoke to her about the downfalls of traditional yoga mats, life in a campervan, and her favorite overalls.
I studied landscape architecture in college and for my thesis, I was playing around with a portable outdoor yoga studio. I was looking into methods of portability. I got all these books on origami folds and my desk was littered with folded paper. The original mat started as an experience, being in a space, having a pop-up mat that you could drop down, connect to others, then take away when you’re done. That was the idea.
Doing yoga outside, especially on the beach or on grass, you don’t get a supportive surface on a normal yoga mat. Adding rigidity was key. So, I sewed a mat with a soft top, rigid base, and fabric cover. That was the original prototype. I took it out to practice on and it actually worked. It was mind blowing when I was like, I actually made something that works.