Goat yoga craze hits Niagara
Forget downward dog — this yoga’s all about goats.
It’s hard to be serious about holding a perfect yoga pose when you have a goat prancing around underneath you.
But that’s exactly what Melina Morsch, owner of Fox Den Yoga in Niagara-on-the-Lake, loves about the growing craze of goat yoga.
When she opened her studio three years ago, her goal was to keep her classes fresh, interactive and entertaining.
Yoga classes that focus on the traditional movements and meditation can be pretty serious and quiet, and she wanted to lighten them up a bit. So she looked for ways to break up the monotony and make them fun, she says, such as combining yoga with beer or taking her classes outside for picnics at a local winery.
When a friend discovered eight baby goats that needed a home, Morsch, an animal-lover who had heard about the craze of goat yoga in the U.S., decided to help nurture them and introduce them to her students, taking her classes to a friend’s barn.
She expected it to be a short-lived trend, a joke that would soon die.
But to her surprise, the craze continues to grow. She’s having a hard time getting her head around how popular it’s becoming and how much attention her classes are garnering, including coverage from a Toronto TV station and a segment on a popular show called Animal Planet.
But she’s going with it, she says, holding sold-out classes at the Red Ribbon Stables on Concession 6, which is better known for its horseriding lessons. She has people signing up from the U.S. and all over Ontario.
“It’s becoming a tourist attraction, another reason to visit Niagara-onthe-Lake,” she says.
She’s buying more goats from a local farmer, and offering classes for corporate team-building workshops, fundraisers and private parties.
Although she’s staggered by the positive response, with no end in sight, she says she’s not at all surprised by the transformation she sees when she takes her classes to the barn and watches her students share their yoga mats with adorable, affectionate miniature goats who frolic around them, thinking they’ve found a new herd to join.
“The goats all have a ‘shtick,’ their own little quirks or habits that make them really endearing,” says Morsch.
“We have one that will stick her head in someone’s shoe and walk around with it on her head. Another always picks one person to cuddle with for the duration of the class. And we have one male who looks for the alpha male in the class and butts heads with him. It makes it so much fun for all of us to watch.”
The goats are pygmies — small, herding animals which are very playful, intelligent and often kept as pets. They join in the class, thinking they’ve found a new herd, and mirror the energy they sense, Morsch says.
“When the class is energetic and everyone is laughing, the goats get super playful. They jump on people, crawl on people — they think it’s time to play.
“But when we get quiet and have a meditative moment, they become quiet. They’ll lay down beside us and get really still.”
Some of those who attend her classes don’t have much opportunity to get close to animals, unless to feed them at a petting zoo, and the goats really want to interact, she says.
“They make us communicate with each other. They are social, and we become social around them. It gives us something to focus on other than ourselves. If we’re thinking about the past or the future, the goats help us to be in the present, more childlike. We forget about unhappiness and stress, and this is what yoga is all about. The more I watch what happens the more I feel this is something we need right now. It’s very healing.”
Instead of the usual quiet concentration of a typical yoga class, “people giggle.”
“They become very bubbly. They talk to each other, and you can see they’re happy.”
For people whose curiosity leads them to wonder about goats relieving themselves during class — a question Morsch is asked regularly — she says people get used to it.
“The goats are not house-trained, they’re livestock, and they’re going to do what they do.”
Joanna Gorski is one of the regulars at Morsch’s classes. She’s become a huge fan of goat yoga, although having studied the more traditional discipline of yoga for about 10 years now, she says she never could have imagined she’d be on her mat one day with goats playing around her.
“I really enjoy the classes, and I love the goats. They are really cute, affectionate and lovable little animals. It’s not serious yoga, it’s fun yoga,” she says.
“It’s amazing to watch 40 to 50 adults playing with goats while they’re doing yoga, and it’s fabulous to see so many happy people. It really lightens up the classes. You’re being entertained by the antics of the goats while you’re moving through the poses, and it makes for a fun afternoon or evening. It’s very uplifting.”
To find out more about goat yoga or to register for a class visit www.foxdenyoga or call 905-468-9042.