Event was a fundraiser for Vancouver Orphan Kitten Rescue Association
A downtown Vancouver yoga studio offered a new twist on cat pose on Sunday.
First there was yoga, then baby yoga, and now - in Vancouver only - yoga for cats.
Yogis at Stretch Yoga in Chinatown were joined by several feline stretching partners on the mat — all for a good cause.
“Today was about raising awareness of homeless cats in Vancouver,” said Barb Mount-Poulsen, a volunteer and board member with the Vancouver Orphan Kitten Rescue Association (VOKRA), which brought nine kitties to the studio.
“It was great fun. We had toys on the floor. Some had teaser wands, so the cats were jumping up, and some were running back and forth and slaloming between the mats.”
Some of the shyer kittens were in a “cuddle pile” in one of the cat houses, while the others padded around the studio, accepting belly rubs and snuggling for cuddles. Two cats were “stressed out” by the surroundings and didn’t participate.
The event, dubbed Cats on Your Mats, was a fundraiser for VOKRA, a non-profit that takes care of abandoned cats and finds them homes.
Mount-Poulsen said VOKRA rescues about 1,800 cats every year, and the number is increasing. “Sometimes we’re rescuing cats we’ve already rescued before, which is really heartbreaking.”
Stretch studio owner Emmanuelle Rosseau, a self-described “cat lady in training,” got the idea for the event after watching a viral video of a similar event at a yoga studio in the U.S. She partnered with Catfe, the city’s first cat café set to open in late October, and VOKRA to put together the purr-fact classes.
The two session cost $25 a pop with proceeds going to VOKRA. They sold out so quickly Rousseau plans to offer two more classes on Jan. 17.
“You can’t do this all the time, but you get people really excited about yoga, and aware about the different options out there and how they can help with cats,” she said.
One of the participants, Mya Wollf, said sharing the space with the cats meant there was no space to “get stuck in your head.”
“It felt like pure love,” said Wollf, who has three cats of her own. “What they give is no judgment, non-biased love.”
The cats were a little distracting, she acknowledged, but “if we’re so serious about our yoga practice that we’re not noticing the wonders of life, I don’t really feel that’s yoga.”
Quynh Mi, another cat lover who also teaches yoga, enjoyed the class so much she wants to look into incorporating the furry creatures to the yin classes she teaches.
“It’s not quite yoga as you would normally do it,” she said.
Yoga encourages being present in the moment, but “here I’m overly distracted by these cats,” she added with a laugh. “It’s a fabulous experience.”
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