the mat is mostly like the mat with short cut turf, the other has longer turf and the ball sits up on it. which side do i hit balls off of?

I'm not sure I completely understand what you are asking. I have seen some mats have two sections of turf. One section is sponge like and the other section is much firmer. You stand on the firm section and hit off the sponge like section. The sponge like section is designed to better imitate natural turf and you can use a regular tee to tee up the ball.

You put balls on the long stuff. You stand on the short stuff.

Unless you want to practice your hard pan lies...