Dr. Kataria’s Laughter Yoga Diary

What is World Laughter Day?

“World Laughter Day” was created in 1998 by Dr. Madan Kataria, founder of the worldwide Laughter Yoga movement. The celebration of World Laughter Day is a positive manifestation for world peace and is intended to build up a global consciousness of brotherhood and friendship through laughter. Its popularity has grown exponentially with that of the Laughter Yoga movement (now counting over 6000 Laughter Clubs worldwide on all 5 continents). Read more…

We have a beautiful new logo for World Laughter Year 2007. Click on the image to see a larger version. It is available for free download for anyone promoting the event.

LAUGH ANGELES

Dr Kataria will start celebrating World Laughter Day in Laugh Angeles after completing a CLY Teacher course on 5 May.

Join us in Belvedere Park, 4865 e 1st St, L.A. for: 11:30: Picnic On The Lawn WITH clowns, jugglers, face painting & musicians; 12:30: Taiko Drummers, 1:00 – 1:30pm: Grand Opening Laughter Session; 1:30: Laughter Competition, 3:00pm: Musical Concert with Scott Huckabay.

IRVINE CALIFORNIA

Dr Kataria will continue the celebrations at Orange County Heritage Athletic Park, Yale Ave, Irvine California.
The program includes many styles of dancing from around the world — watch or DANCE!; group singing, poetry reading, guitar sing-a-longs; Laughter Yoga, Art Contest, Photography Contest; massage therapists to soothe your aches; a Dream Treasure Chest Workshop & more!

LA details at http://www.laughangeles.com/world-laughter-day-06program.php

Irvine details at http://www.hahayoga.com/

Creative laughter yoga teacher Jeffrey Briar of Laguna Laughter Club has announced the 1st “Laughter at Sea” cruise, from Los Angeles to Ensenada, Mexico departing October 12-15.

This fun and laughter filled vacation includes a morning Laughter Club At Sea, a Laughter-Go-Round (share new laughter exercises inspired by the day’s excursion in Ensenada), “Stress-Free in Seven Seconds” — laughter practices which catapult us quickly into joyfulness and freedom from worry and a “Grand Gibberish Reception”.
Jeffrey will also present his new multimedia presentation “The Birth, Care and Feeding of a Successful Laughter Club”.

Cruise on Royal Caribbean’s luxurious “Monarch of the Seas” cruise ship — in addition to the laughter yoga program activities include 24-hour fine dining, live stage show nightly, gym, spa, swimming pools, jacuzzis, rock climbing wall, basketball courts, dancing in several lounges, duty-free shopping, and a full casino.

The cost of the 3-day weekend, including laughter programs, meals, and three nights’ lodging is from $410 per person. Space is limited and prices will increase – quick registration is recommended.

For information contact the Jeffrey at Laguna Laughter Club phone/fax (949) 376-1939, or e-mail info@lyinstitute.org. Register for the cruise at www.connectiontocruise.com

It gives me great pleasure and satisfaction to see that a church in America has adopted laughter yoga as their health ministry to their community.

The ‘Our Savior’ Lutheran Church in  Lansing, Iowa sent Pastor Laura Gentry to train as a CLY Leader. She started the first laughter club in Iowa in their church, but within three weeks the group became too large and moved to a nearby community center.

Pastor Laura is coming to Los Angeles to train with me as a CLY Teacher so she can spread her ministry of laughter further afield by training more laughter leaders.

The church is proud to be known as the laughing church and has changed the church Web site to www.laughinglutherans.com.

The laughter club is extremely successful and growing fast. Its been reported in  the US Lutheran website.

Here are some testimonials from their members:

“Laughter Yoga is so powerful. After each meeting, I feel totally exhilarated, tingling with happiness and  impressed with the widened sense of well-being that I have! ”
—Melanie Wittman

“A lot of people get too serious but here you can just cut loose and act any way you want.  It is so nice to feel free to be yourself!”
—Gary Jones

“The time goes bam. You get to giggling and it’s gone. It feels so … oh honey, you just come home feeling like, woo, you really feel good. It makes your whole evening.”  —Avis Davis

“I think if people would come to Laughter Club on a continuous basis, they’d see a big difference in their day to day living.  It really relieves stress and helps you meaningfully connect with other people.”
—Gene Scott

“It’s fun for the whole family.  Our three year-old totally loves it!”
—Vern Timmerman

“I’m  really surprised how quickly our church’s Laughter Club has taken off.  It is a good ice breaker for people to get to know one another. It’s such a fantastic outreach that it’s hardly a laughing matter!”
—Congregational President, Don Thran

Because of the recent explosion of interest about laughter yoga, the Dr Kataria School of Laughter Yoga is in the process of preparing a series of self-study modules.

These are short self-study courses for people who are seriously interested and wish to learn more about laughter yoga. They will not lead to professional certification, which requires personal training with properly qualified laughter yoga teachers who provide practical training and personal guidance.

• The first self study module will provide an introduction to laughter yoga, including a brief history and the theory & science behind laughter yoga.
• Another module will cover the practical side of laughter yoga, how laughter yoga sessions work, warm-up exercises, group dynamics and introduce different styles of laughter yoga for special groups, for example fitness, social, seniors, schools, hospitals and more.

Further modules will deal with laughing alone and laughter yoga for special groups.

All modules will be prepared and presented by Dr Madan Kataria, the founder of laughter yoga and will include the latest techniques and developments in this rapidly developing field.

LAUGHTER YOGA CERTIFICATION

Laughter yoga recognizes two levels of professional certification. These are taught in face to face group training sessions and will never be offered online.
The first level of laughter yoga certification of CLY Leader (Certified Laughter Yoga Leader) requires a minimum of two days of training with a certified teacher. Some teachers extend the course to three days to provide additional skill training.

In addition to completing the training, leaders are expected to be familiar with the content of Dr Kataria’s book ‘Laugh for No Reason’. Contact your local laughter leaders or teachers for information about CLYL training courses in your region.
The second level of certification is the CLY Teacher (Certified Laughter Yoga Teacher). This is a five day training course currently offered only by Dr Kataria, who travels to provide training in different parts of the world. See Dr Kataria’s training schedule here.

Further training modules are in development and will be made available when they are ready.

Laughter yoga is constantly developing as improvements and breakthroughs are made in techniques, exercises and scientific research. We have instituted an ongoing education program to upgrade the skill levels of our existing laughter yoga leaders and teachers to make sure that all participants get the best laughter yoga services possible.

On 7th January 2007 we were invited to a 6th annual laughter competition day organized by Aarey Walkers & Laughter Club.

They invited 10 laughter clubs from western Mumbai. The unique feature of this year’s competition was that each laughter club was to send 10 members to present a “Theme Story”, incorporating laughter exercises into their stories.

It was amazing to see the creativity and playfulness that laughter club members have developed over the years. These ordinary people have developed a remarkable sense of humor through laughter.

Here are some of the examples of theme stories from the competition:

The award winning story was about an American couple coming to visit laughter clubs in India. Each group member wore an outfit representing a different state in India and each was laughing, dancing and talking in a different way. The American couple was amazed by the diversity of Indian laughter clubs.

The story which I liked best didn’t win a prize. It was about 9 laughter club members walking to a laughter club when they found a person lying by the road looking like he is about to die. One said take him to the hospital. Another said No No No nothing doing — there is no medicine like laughter. We’ll revive him with laughter. They checked his respiration and pulse and then started doing laughter exercises around and over him. After two exercises he started moving his fingers and toes. After more laughter exercises he improves further then gets up and start laughing and dancing with them. Ho ho ha ha and no need to go to iCU.

Another story was about a laughter group that went out on a picnic and did different laughter exercises while they were having food, talking on the mobile, discussing and arguing with each other.

Another club presented a story in which the laughter leader explains about a guest who stayed in his house. The guest was a poet. They made different laughter exercises out of his good and bad habits — for example he burped and farted out loud, made lot of noise while eating. It was very funny.

SHOWTIMES UPDATE: East Coast at 3pm, West Coast at 6pm (we think, please check your local TV guide)
The wave of media interest in laughter yoga that has been building steadily shows no signs of slowing down.

The Oprah Winfrey Show is the latest to express an interest in laughter yoga. Last week they invited Jeffrey Briar and Sebastien Gentry to fly to Chicago to film a laughter yoga session for the show.

I am very happy about this. While laughter yoga gets constant attention from BBC, ABC, NBC, ZDF and many other TV stations, it is most often their news departments who film us.

Oprah is a different kind of show. Her concerns seem to be oriented towards helping her viewers to achieve health, happiness and joy, and that is perfectly in accordance with laughter yoga.

My personal thanks go to Oprah and her team for shining their spotlight on laughter yoga.

I understand the segment will screen this Wednesday 11 April in the USA. Let’s hope they mention World Laughter Day that falls on May 6 this year.

Watch out for it.

For the past years I have received many requests from South African for laughter yoga.

Last month Madhuri and I finally set foot in Africa. This has been a dream of mine and I felt a feeling of accomplishment and happiness as we set foot on African soil for the first time in Johannesburg.

We conducted public seminars in Johannesburg and Pretoria and also a laughter leader training course in Johannesburg. South Africa is a beautiful country with warm welcoming people who love to laugh. The laughter energy at some of our sessions was memorable. I especially remember the great session at Yoga Connection where we met such wonderful people — thank you Carley, laughter-blaster Basho, Alan and all!

In Cape Town we were amazed at the great natural beauty of the city, mountains and sea. We ran a leader training course at Cape Town Medi Spa, a wonderful venue — thanks to owner Ian and his team for the great support and hospitality. The laughter energy at the Cape Town course was fantastic.

We have 50 new laughter leaders in South Africa and seeing how well people responded and how committed our leaders are I am confident that laughter yoga will spread very quickly. Already I have reports of sessions being held in Pretoria, Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg with plans for laughter yoga in yoga studios, hospitals, townships, orphanages, prisons, schools, offices, MS and cancer groups, an upmarket spa, major companies and more.

The press response was very good, with radio & tv sessions and coverage in major magazines including Longevity and Marie Claire. Special thanks to Janine of LaughSA, Kaz of Total Media, and Nikki of the UPliftment Program for their hard work in support of laughter yoga.

I love South Africa and will return soon.

Alex Sternick, leader of Jerusalem Laughter Club-Rose Garden writes about a wonderful event, a laughter workshop with Jewish and Arab artists participating together in a conference called “Speaking Art” organized by The Jerusalem Foundation and the Inter-Cultural Center for Jerusalem.

Together with yoga leaders Nitza Arbel, Nurit Tal, Orelia Or, Noam Leshem, Anne Rakover, Bat Shachar Weinfeld a laughter yoga session was held to open the conference.

Over 80 people including Jews from all over Israel and Arabs from East Jerusalem and the Gallilee participated in the conference. “It was amazing to see Jews and Arabs laughing, shaking hands, being childish, giggling and being foolish together, forgetting for the moment the conflict in which they live” says Sternick.

After the success a teacher in the bilingual school in Kefar Kara asked for laughter yoga to be introduced for the Jewish and Arab students there.

The success of this event highlights how well laughter yoga works to bring together people from disparate cultures and backgrounds, breaking down barriers and enabling shared joyfulness and communication.

These photos from laughter yoga teacher John of his first training session in Taiwan last month.
He writes that they had a great time, they not only talked gibberish but also sang gibberish Chinese opera!

Keep up the good work John!

Nasik is a town about 200 kilometers from Mumbai. The 32 local laughter clubs decided to promote laughter yoga and organized a laughter rally to bring awareness about laughter yoga to school children and the general population.

Nearly 1000 children from different schools and 700 laughter club members gathered in a stadium at 7 AM in the morning. They took their “Laughethon” through the streets of the city. Children were dressed in colorful clothes and were dancing along with a band.
Local police regulated traffic while the marchers chanted ho ho ha ha slogans through the streets. Scores of people from the shops and buildings cheered the procession and laughed with them.

The laughter rally lasted for one hour and ended with a cultural program in the stadium.

    
The event was organized by Dr. Sushma Dugad, the chief anchor person of Nasik Laughter Clubs.

Mahendra Shah from Ahmedabad, India was invited by Dr. Sushma Dugad to attend a Laughter Rally and public seminar in Nasik on 15th December 2006 which I attended.

I was extremely touched when Mahendra Shah said he was planning to stay in a hotel and was offered home stay by our laughter leader Dr. Sushma in Nasik.

I asked Mahendra Shah about his home stay experience. He started crying and said that he was treated with more love and kindness than he could have imagined. He was treated like a star and was taken to different laughter clubs every day where he was greeted with garlands, a Christmas cap and a warm shawl. In 3 days he visited 8 laughter clubs, one orphanage and 3 schools for laughter yoga sessions.

We are starting a world wide laughter exchange program and would like to see more and more experiences like this.

Laughter leader Kamlesh Masalawala from Surat, India has been appointed as laughter yoga teacher, or in local parlance “Laughter Sir”, in a Sanskar Bharati Vidyalaya, a high school in Surat, India.

Laughter Yoga has been introduced in many schools in Bangalore, Mumbai and Surat, but this is for the first time any school has taken the initiative to appoint a laughter yoga teacher.

Earlier they has ‘PT Sir’ for exercises, ‘Music Sir’ for Singing and playing music and now comes ‘Laughter Sir’. Kamlesh has been officially appointed is on the payroll as as Laughter Sir. His duties are teach laughter yoga for 10 minutes to 1000 students 3 times in a week after morning assembly.

Mr. Paresh Patel, the principal of the Sanskar Bharati School is very pleased with the outcome. He believes in laughter yoga and has set himself the challenge of doing laughter yoga with 25,000 children in a stadium within 2007 to set a new official record.

This is a milestone in the development of laughter yoga, one that we see as the beginning of a worldwide trend.

In the last weeks we have heard about laughter yoga being introduced at an international school in Hawaii, at Harvard University, and at a university in China.

In January I visited Aarey Laughter club in Mumbai.

I always look out for people who are different in their own way: meet Mansukh Shah, a 58 year old laughter club member from Mumbai.

Every morning he gets up at 5.30AM and makes 40-50 phone calls from his mobile phone to remind his fellow laughter club members to get up and come to laughter club.

Even if the other person says YES I know and I am coming to laughter club, Mansukh calls just in case he has forgotten. This is his routine for the past 4 years and he does it every single day. Nobody get irritated by his repeated phone calls, in fact it seems that he is the darling of the laughter club.

Mansukh is a very successful business man and doing extremely well. During rainy season every year he donates 200 umbrellas to the poor who can’t afford to buy an umbrella.

Hats off to Mansukh Shah - VERY GOOD, VERY GOOD - YEAH!

The photo shows one of the 160 laughter club in Bangalore, India.Why does it look like they’re fenced in?
In the year 2000 a laughter club was started by a retired couple at 4T Block in Bangalore, India. membership soon picked up and soon 80-100 people gathered every morning for their laughter session between 6.30am and 7.30am.

A retired engineer living in an apartment in the neighborhood complained to the police about noise pollution from the laughter session. A police inspector came to the laughter club and found nothing wrong with the laughter noise levels — in his opinion the traffic noise from the road was much louder than the sounds of the laughter club.

Frustrated by the attitude of the police, the man filed a court case against laughter club with the metropolitan magistrate. The magistrate started laughing when he discovered that the wife of the complainant was attending the laughter club. After 2 hearings the case was dismissed and the magistrate referred the case to Municipal Corporation of Bangalore.

Several meetings where held with the corporation and local ministers and who were amazed to find that laughter clubs are helping thousands of people to maintain their physical and mental health.

Instead of banning the laughter clubs, a special order was passed to the Municipal authority to reserve a special area in each park (or garden as they are locally called) in Bangalore city for a laughter club. Bangalore is also known as the “Garden City” as it has more than 200 well maintained gardens.

What you see in this picture is a special enclosure provided by the municipal corporation for laughter yoga sessions only. This is a landmark judgment in the history of laughter movement where laughter clubs were recognized and given special status by the local government for their benefit to the local population.

I have visited more than a thousand laughter clubs and studios around the world. At the Vishweshwaraiah laughter club in Bangalore I found something quite unique.
I met five married couples who laugh together. Normally I meet either the husband or the wife doing laughter yoga, but very rarely couples who laugh together. To find five couples laughing together in one laughter club sets a record.
I asked them to laugh with me they did a special laughter exercise putting their hands on each other’s shoulders. They all enjoyed it. For me the message is clear: People who laugh together stay together.

One of the couples bring their son and daughter along too - happy family!

At 5:45 a.m. there was a knock at my door. Two laughter leaders greeted me with laughter — one held a coffee flask and other glasses. After a quick coffee we headed for the laughter club which starts 6:15am sharp.

The remarkable thing about laughter clubs in India is that they all start on time. In other matters we Indians are not good at keeping time. This makes me feel proud about laughter clubs. I hear some people in the neighborhoods now know it’s 6.15 when they hear the ho ho ha ha ha. Read more…

On 24th November 2006 I visited a school for physically and mentally challenged children in Bangalore, India run by a group of volunteers supported by local government. There were 50 children aged 5 to 12 years and a group of up to 35 years of age.

Read more…

What a delightful name. The Romeo laughter club in Bangalore took its name from it’s founders and what they were doing when they decided to start the club.

Read more…

This will be first authentic study in India on Laughter Yoga. The research project is being sponsored by Indian heart Vishwa Prakash from New York who is a very close friend of Dr. Madan Kataria.

     
Read more…