'Sweet Spot' With Mike Sugerman: Getting My 'Goat Yoga' On
"Sweet Spot," by Mike Sugerman
SMITHTOWN, N.Y. (WCBS 880) -- My last yoga class was baaad. My classmates were animals. I guess I should have known just by the name.
"It's called 'goat yoga,'" said instructor Teresa Gaenzla. "It's the new phenomenon, the new trend."
She led 35 devotees through their paces at the Smithtown Historical Society on Long Island, while a couple dozens goats did pretty much whatever they wanted.
"It adds a bit of playfulness to it, takes away from the seriousness of it" Gaenzla said. "And people love it. Everybody has a smile on their face by the end."
In other words: If yoga seems too stressful, just add goats.
"This is my first time doing yoga," my neighbor told me while in a downward dog.
I told her there aren't usually goats in most yoga classes.
"I know there aren't goats in every class," she replied. "It was great."
Goat yoga is pretty much just what it sounds like -- a herd of goats wander around while a crowd of people do yoga.
Sometimes they climb on top of you. Sometimes they do their goat business in front of you. Sometimes, sadly, you step in it.
"I like goats, my wife doesn't," yoga-regular Mike Stein told me. "My son-in-law does, so we decided to come out and do goat yoga."
He learned to practice back-in-the-day in Canada, listening to radio host Alex Trebek, who went on to host "Jeopardy," while he went on to try goat yoga.
Someone put a video on YouTube earlier this year and, for no good reason, it just kind of caught on.
"It's definitely an American thing," Gaenzla said.
Oh yeah, I don't think the Indians would do goat yoga. No, not at all.
And that's not a stretch.
