Our story
Born from a life time of practice. Designed for yoga on the go
Rodney and Colleen Yee have spent 40 years teaching yoga by meeting people exactly where they are, not where they wish they were. Bento Yoga is a family project, bringing together Rodney and Colleen's decades of teaching experience with their son Evan's years of design and development, all in one thoughtfully designed kit.
40+
Years of teaching
6
Years of design
1
US patent
The family behind the ONE
Evan Yee
Founder & designer
A product designer who grew up in the back of his parents' classes. He spent six years engineering the fold, the hollow block and the strap into a single object. He holds the patent on it.
Rodney Yee
Instructor, video library
One of the most recognized yoga teachers in America. Four decades of teaching, and for millions of people the voice that guided their very first practice.
Colleen Saidman Yee
Instructor, video library
Decades of teaching alongside Rodney, known for a precise, deeply human approach to alignment and for training a generation of teachers.
The teachers
Rodney Yee and Colleen Saidman Yee have spent more than four decades teaching yoga in America. For a great many people, a Rodney Yee video was the first time anyone explained what to do with their breath. Colleen has trained a generation of teachers and is known for an approach to alignment that is precise without ever being cold.
Between them they have taught in studios, in living rooms, on public television, and in teacher trainings around the world. They are the reason the ONE includes instruction rather than a QR code to a marketing page.
The designer
Evan Yee is a product designer, and Rodney and Colleen's son. He grew up watching people arrive at his parents' classes carrying a mat under one arm, two blocks under the other, and a strap in a pocket, and watching many of them stop coming, because the gear made practicing at home feel like a production.
He spent six years on the answer. Getting a 4.11mm mat to fold flat and still lie flat took most of the first year. Hollowing a block without giving up the load it can take, and closing it with a snap closure that holds but doesn't fight you, took most of the second. The third went to the strap, the piece that had to seal the kit, carry it, and still work as a real yoga strap.
What came out is one object. You pick it up with one hand, and everything you need for a practice comes with it.
One detail worth knowing
The way the mat folds into the blocks is protected by US Patent 11,986,716-B2. Practically, that means the kit you're looking at is the only one that works this way, it took six years to get the fold, the hollow block and the strap right, and the patent reflects that work.
See the ONE