Around 140 University of Tennessee at Chattanooga students visited Chamberlain Field on Wednesday, Aug. 21, to unwind during the first week of classes, along with some four-legged friends—goats.
Goat yoga, hosted by the Center for Wellbeing and the Office of Student and Family Engagement, is a Welcome Week tradition in which students attempt their best yoga poses while goats jump on their backs, bellies and shoulders.
“It’s probably one of our favorite events,” said Amy Kyriakidis, assistant director for suicide education and prevention in the Center for Wellbeing. “Students love it and it fills up. I posted it two weeks in advance and it was almost filled the day I put it up.”
It didn’t take much to draw students in. For freshman communication student Mason White, it was simply the title—“Goat Yoga”—that sold him.
Kalyn Taczy
“Who doesn’t want to hang out with goats?” White asked.
Kalyn Taczy, a freshman environmental science major, thought the same when hearing about the event.
“I’ve never done it before, so I was like, ‘Goat yoga? OK,’” Taczy said as a goat leaped off her back. “It’s scratchier than I thought it would be, but it’s pretty cool.”
White told other students who may be interested not to worry—it doesn’t hurt.
“It tickled,” he said. “But I want to do it again.”
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Photo gallery by Angela Foster
