An alarm going off in the morning is never a welcome sound. It blares, you roll over, hit dismiss and wish that you didn’t have to get out of your warm oasis. That feeling hits even harder after the long weekend. So, what better time to host a goat yoga event than after the first day back to work after a holiday?
Michelle Parker, owner of Fx3 Fitness Studio in St. Albert has been hosting goat yoga events at her studio since April 2018 after teaming up with Thistle Hill Farm Petting Zoo and Pony Rides, a farm she has volunteered with for the past 12 years.
The Gazette joined Fx3 Fitness for their May 21 class, and Parker said she has received nothing but positive feedback about the classes.
“As people leave, we get comments about how they were having such a horrible day and then they came and they felt much better and leave smiling,” Parker said.
While yoga is an ancient practice that started in India around 5,000 years ago, goat yoga is relatively new. The origins of goat yoga can be traced back to 2016, when Lainey Morse, a woman from Oregon, purchased some land and a couple of goats to help with her depression after going through a divorce and being diagnosed with an autoimmune disease.
When a friend, who happened to be a yoga instructor, suggested Morse host a yoga class in the field where the goats roamed, goat yoga was born.
After trying and failing to trademark goat yoga (the name is too generic to be trademarked), Morse renamed her business Original Goat Yoga and successfully trademarked the name and logo. Now, other goat yoga events and businesses have been popping up around the United States and Canada, mixing the ancient practice of yoga with the therapeutic company of animals.
Al Borys and his wife own Thistle Hill Farm Petting Zoo and Pony Rides and provide Parker with the Nigerian dwarf goats and lambs for her goat yoga classes. The classes are offered depending on when new goats and lambs are born at Borys’ farm.
The animals that attended the latest yoga class were all two to four weeks old.
“The first two weeks of their lives, they need to be bottle fed every three hours and be in Pampers,” Borys said. “We go through a mega box of Pampers every three days.”
The feeding schedules and mountains of used diapers aren’t the only things that these animals have in common with human babies – they are just as cuddly and affectionate too, making them perfect yoga companions.
Borys says lambs attach onto their human caretakers as if the humans are their mothers, while baby goats become friendly and familiar without being so attached.
During the May 21 class, it was very evident Borys was the mother figure to his beloved lambs as he sat on a stool, cuddling one of the woolly babies close to his chest, rubbing its cheeks and lovingly calming it into a slumber.
Participants in the class got to experience the love and affection too and, in fact, were encouraged to do so during the yoga class.
“Don’t be afraid to cuddle the goats. I won’t be offended,” laughed Stacey Jethon, the yoga instructor for the class that evening.
Yes, the goats eat your hair and yes, they will eat any piece of loose clothing they can find hanging off of you. The goats were also trying to eat the curtains, paper, purses and anything else they could get their tiny teeth on, but you don’t care as soon as they come and sit on your lap or give you a loving nudge as you struggle to hold that plank position.
“We had one lady who just came in and sat cross-legged and just played with the goats the whole time and was surrounded the whole time,” Parker remembered. She said the laughter of the people and the goats are her favourite parts of hosting the events.
“After the first class, when the first goat was brought in and seeing all the giggles and squeals and faces light up,” Parker said, “that let me know that we need to keep doing this.”
Michelle Bishop, a woman from St. Albert, attended the class after purchasing tickets for her friend’s birthday.
“(The goats) are adorable. I go to regular yoga, but it’s nothing like this,” Bishop said. “I didn’t really come for the yoga, I came for the goats.”
“Twenty-five per cent of people just come for the goats.” Borys laughed.
The classes are just as enjoyable for the animals as they are for the participants. Nigerian dwarf goats are a type of dairy goat but are bred to be pets. These goats stay small, only growing to be about 57 centimetres tall and weighing between 30 to 45 pounds. They are also very affectionate and social.
“The more the babies go to goat yoga,” Parker said, “the more they jump on backs and become more agile.”
Parker hopes to be able to offer new types of animal yoga and is always talking with Borys about new types of classes to offer. This Easter, the studio offered a bunny yoga class and while this year’s event was small, Parker hopes to do a bigger and better bunny yoga event for next Easter. Since the May 21 goat yoga class, Fx3 fitness has held other bunny yoga classes and recently had guinea pigs join them as well.
Other animals that are being spoken about as possible yoga guests include wallabies (small, kangaroo-like marsupials) and chickens.
“We get yoga, which is good for the soul and animal therapy, which is good for the soul,” Parker said. “When you combine the two activities together, it’s just twice as good.”
Anyone is welcome and encouraged to come to the animal yoga events hosted at FX3 Fitness studios. All animal yoga events are indoors and are not weather-dependant, unlike many other animal yoga events that are hosted outdoors.
“Our motto at the studio is live, laugh, play. We are always looking for ways to remind people to have fun, while, by the way, being active,” Parker said. “Goat yoga fit right into that.”
