Riverside’s parks and recreation department hosted two sessions of goat yoga next to the Scout Cabin on Thursday, July 23 — and it’s exactly what it sounds like.
From 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., more than 20 residents flocked to the area to take a yoga lesson from certified instructor Michele Apps, the owner of Nature’s Trail Yoga in Orland Park. She was joined by five of her assistant yoga instructors who walked on four legs and grazed at the grass as well as Faith Apps, a goat wrangler for the company.
“Goat yoga is essentially what it sounds like. You have a certified yoga instructor who will take you through a typical yoga class, but they add goats into it for fun,” said Alyssa Szymanski, one of the department’s recreation supervisors. “While you’re doing downward dog, tree — I’m not very versed in yoga, but some of those yoga positions — the goats walk around and interact. Animal yogas in general have been up and coming in the last couple years.”
Szymanski told the Landmark that 57 residents signed up for goat yoga across Thursday’s two sessions, the second of which took place from 6:45 to 7:45 p.m. Szymanski said parks and recreation staff hope to see it become a recurring event in town if there is resident support.
“With any new program, we have no idea [how it will go]. We’re in a stage of throwing everything at a wall right now and seeing what sticks and what is interesting for our community here in Riverside. I know they tried this in the past before; one session went, and the other didn’t,” she said.
Szymanski said she was worried at the start of the week that there would only be enough signups for one session. but the department worked closely with Kit Wiberg, Riverside’s communications and marketing manager, to get the word out this week.
She said she felt the inclusion of the grazing goats made the event feel less intimidating to people who might otherwise have avoided it.
“I feel like yoga is one of those [activities] that can have a negative taste in people’s mouths. I grew up as a dancer, so I would do something like this, but I feel the yoga conception is that it’s for people who are really flexible or are into deep breathing. There are a lot of misconceptions of what, actually, yoga is,” Szymanski said.
Something like goat yoga, she said, makes the event feel more casual and gives people a low-stakes opportunity to try it and find out if they like it.
She said the event plays into the parks and recreation department’s overall goal of encouraging outdoor activity and taking advantage of Riverside’s bountiful green space in a world where we’re increasingly drawn into screens.
“Riverside is a perfect natural environment, and getting outside is so easy here. Riverside is a very fortunate community for that. I’ve worked in previous jobs with Chicago school district kids and have done educational programs for them, and they don’t have access to something like this,” Szymanski said. “Technology is a great thing, and even in outdoor and nature education, it is a very powerful and useful tool, but I feel like it can overtake and overpower a lot of things.”
