3A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, APRIL 10, 2017
GOAT YOGA CRAZE
Oregon yoga business goes viral
Waitlist grew to
2,400 people
Games help
keep workers
entertained
By NATHAN BRUTTELL
Corvallis Gazette-Times
CORVALLIS — Jessie
Ryan was ready to move out of
her Warrior II pose when she
felt a nudge on the back of her
leg.
When she turned around,
she couldn’t help but laugh
when she saw Quincy, a
1-year-old minigoat, staring
back up at her.
It was the moment Ryan
had traveled from Portland to
Oregon’s mid-valley to expe-
rience: the birthplace of a
nation-sweeping craze known
as goat yoga.
“How can you not connect
with this face?” Ryan asked
as Quincy bleated back to her.
“You’re in the middle of doing
a pose, thinking about how
terrible everything is, when a
goat comes up and kisses you
or steps on your fingers and all
that stress goes away. It sounds
like something a modern-day
Lewis Carroll would write.”
Ryan joined 15 other peo-
ple for one of the first goat
yoga classes of the new year
at Corvallis’ Hanson Country
Inn.
But they aren’t the only
ones who have signed up for
founder Lainey Morse’s ses-
sions — the waitlist for the
class grew to 2,400 people
over the winter.
Goat yoga combines a one-
hour yoga session with the ani-
mal-therapy of social mini-
goats that wander around and
interact with the class. When
Albany’s Morse first combined
the words “goat” and “yoga”
for a simple event last July, she
inadvertently created a media
whirlwind. Since then, her life
has been anything but simple.
Goat yoga fever
In the last eight months,
stories have appeared in hun-
dreds of media outlets around
Pingpong, exercise
room provide fun
at Oregon Lottery
By CLAIRE
WITHYCOMBE
Capital Bureau
Andy Cripe/The Corvallis Gazette-Times
While the rest of her classmates hold a yoga pose Jessie Ryan, of Portland, pauses to
spend some time with Quincy the goat during Goat Yaga class in Corvallis.
Andy Cripe/The Corvallis Gazette-Times
Goats mingle during a Goat Yoga class.
the world, including the Wash-
ington Post, Time magazine,
The New York Times, CNN,
NPR, ESPN, National Geo-
graphic, Vogue, BBC and hun-
dreds of blogs.
Last September, the Post’s
Karin Brulliard wrote, “Well,
it’s about time: Someone has
finally launched a yoga class
with goats” and noting that
when Morse created the class
“magic was made.”
Two months later, under the
headline “Bring a Yoga Mat
and an Open Mind. Goats Are
Provided,” New York Times
reporter Kirk Johnson wrote,
“As you smell that grass on a
yoga mat, you realize that you
have entered the goats’ world,
not the other way around.”
There is now a “Goat Yoga”
page on Wikipedia, too.
Even “Tonight Show” host
Jimmy Fallon covered the
story in a September opening
monologue.
“Apparently, there’s a farm
in Oregon that offers a yoga
class that you can take with
goats roaming around you,”
he said. “They even have a
special position called the
downward facing (soundbite
of goat bleating).”
Morse, who lives at Alba-
ny’s No Regrets Farm with
her 11 Nigerian dwarf goats,
had hosted several goat-cen-
tered events previously,
including Goat Therapy
(spending relaxing time with
goats) and Goat Happy Hour
(spending relaxing time with
goats and wine). They were
well-attended, locally pop-
ular and helped supplement
her income. But Morse had no
idea goat yoga would hit like
it did.
“Nothing prepares you
for that; it’s just absolutely
mind-blowing” Morse said
while preparing for a class at
the Hanson Country Inn. “You
always hear about something
going viral but you don’t
know what it means until you
experience it. It’s intense. It’s
like a roller coaster you can’t
get off. It’s the most crazy
thing you could ever do.”
SALEM — The proof is
in the pingpong: It really is
fun and games at the Ore-
gon Lottery.
With the advent of
smoke-free workplace laws,
the lottery’s enclosed smok-
ing area was not being used.
Until a state employee
gamely stepped up.
“We had this space out
there, so one of the employ-
ees donated a pingpong
table and people play,” said
Chuck Baumann, a spokes-
man for the Lottery.
In the past, the employee
engagement
committee
organized pingpong tourna-
ments, but it’s not clear how
much the table is used now,
Baumann said Friday.
The lottery’s former dep-
uty director, Roland Ipar-
raguirre, used to play,
according to an investi-
gation into his conduct
reported by The Oregonian
this week.
Other diversions at the
lottery office? A workout
room that includes an ellip-
tical machine, treadmill and
set of weights, as well as
video lottery games in demo
mode. The Oregon Lot-
tery chooses which games
to buy among those offered
by its three video lottery
suppliers.
Baumann said employ-
ees use the amenities on
their breaks.
The pingpong table and
other methods for staving
off cubicle-induced ennui
seem to be a selling point
for the agency, which has
more than 400 workers,
according to a recruitment
video on its website.
In that video, the Ore-
gon Lottery bills itself as a
“billion-dollar a year enter-
tainment company” that has
all the trappings of a Sil-
icon Valley startup: gen-
erous benefits, a spirited
workplace and a social ben-
efit component (lottery pro-
ceeds go to fish and wildlife
conservation, education and
veterans’ services, among
other things).
“Incidentally, because
we are an entertainment
company, sometimes we
like to have a little bit of
fun,” says the man in the
promotional video.
While the Oregon Lot-
tery may not be the only
state agency to have work-
place diversions, it seems
there’s no statewide inven-
tory for such things.
Items like pingpong
tables are typically acquired
informally through dona-
tions. And they don’t
require changes to existing
state buildings, like mov-
ing walls, according to state
Department of Administra-
tive Services spokesman
Matt Shelby.
The Capital Bureau is a
collaboration between EO
Media Group and Pamplin
Media Group.
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