Find your namaste with a goat yoga class — we kid you not
Latest twist on practice involves animals meant to help yogis find balance between work and play
ST. THOMAS, ONT.— My husband and I fought traffic jams for hours during the evening rush with a cranky six-monthold in tow. By the time we pulled into Full Circle Ranch in St. Thomas, Ont., I was late for my special yoga class. This was a disaster. I even forgot my mat. When I threw my hands to the floor and pulled myself into cobra pose, I landed on something damp.
It was probably goat pee. After all, it was a yoga class held in a barn filled with goats. What else could it be?
The deep breathing exercises brought the pungent smell of manure. All around me, yogis giggled. Goats wandered all around us, even jumping on our backs as we were planking.
Yoga among goats is all the rage in the yoga world.
Hundreds of people are on waiting lists for these classes in the U.S. and they’ve now arrived in Ontario and other parts of Canada. Classes are held at several farms near the GTA.
The goats are there to take you out of your comfort zone, test your concentration and find your balance between work and play, instructor Ibolya Sepsi ex- plained after class.
“You need to be in the moment and pick up the energy around you,” said Sepsi, who owns a yoga studio in nearby London, Ont.
She and Morrigan Reilly-Ansons, the owner of the ranch, decided to collaborate on a goat yoga series after seeing the craze pop up in Arizona. As someone who offers equine-assisted psychotherapy at the ranch with her miniature horses, Reilly-Ansons is a firm believer of the therapeutic benefits of animals.
“When we become adults, we lose our ability to play,” Reilly-Ansons said.
“Goat yoga brings that back.”
The goats snubbed me for the first 30 minutes of the beginner flow yoga class until Sepsi’s husband, Itsban, picked up Marsha, a 31⁄ 2- month-old kid, and placed her on my back. Her hoofs tickled. I think Marsha sensed the unsteadiness of my “balancing table pose” so she jumped off, let me regain my balance, and leapt back on. I highly recommend this. Nothing can lift the weight off your shoulders like having a goat on your back.
Fighting the instinct to take a ridiculous selfie in the middle of class is harder than the yoga poses themselves. All around me were distracted yogis who occasionally stopped midpose for a photo with the animals. And that’s OK.
The session was more “goat” than “yoga” and it served as a gateway for yoga newbies such as Shelby McGlone and her boyfriend, David Marks, the only male participant and “not really a yoga guy.”
“I was playing with goats more than I was doing yoga,” he said.
Debbie Nightingale of Haute Goat farm in Port Hope, Ont., who ran goat yoga sessions at her farm’s inaugural opening last month, said the session had an impact.
“I had one lady visit us who had breast cancer. She told me that she would buy a goat from me if she survives her disease, and she did,” Nightingale said by phone. She told me of another case where her goats interacted with an autistic child in a way the mother had never seen before.
“They are just so communicative and curious,” she said.
“They are very therapeutic in the very basic level. They just make you feel good.”
Our drive back to the city was much more serene. Sure, it was way past the rush hour, but I need to give credit where credit is due. Nothing affirms the pop-culture acronym “Greatest Of All Time” like a nonsweaty goat yoga session. Full Circle Ranch: St. Thomas, Ont., every Wednesday, 7 p.m., $20 Fox Den Yoga: Burlington, July 9, 6:30 p.m.; Niagara-on-the-Lake, June 30, 6 p.m.; Mississauga, July 23 & 24, 6 p.m. Holly Hill Hobby Farm: Brantford, Ont., July 3 & 15, 7 p.m. $20