Laughter Yoga in Japan
12-Mar-08We have visited Japan between the 1st and the 10th of March for a series of public seminars and laughter leadership training.
Our trip to the land of the ‘Rising Sun’ was a dream come true. For many years, I longed to go to Japan as I had heard several interesting and fascinating stories about the country. The workers in Japan began their day by doing some exercises and it was my vision to teach them Laughter Yoga and help them to incorporate it in their daily routine.
But, alas, we started off with a mishap. One of our traveling bags got misrouted to Los Angeles which left us stranded without most of our things for almost two days. Though terribly inconvenienced, we kept our spirit of laughter alive. Instead of getting aggravated, we laughed right till the end of the matter.
In fact, in the face of this adversity, we realized the tremendous competence of the people of Japan. Though we lost our bag, we were very well attended by the staff at the airport. They were really warm and hospitable. We have visited almost 35 countries and nowhere did we see the kind of discipline in every aspect of life. The Japanese are perfectionist by temperament and they painstakingly ensure that everything is well organized, neat and comfortable.
We got a first hand experience of how well they look after everything; right from buildings to people. Narita airport which was made many years ago still looks as good as new. At every step, the airport staff assisted people and extended every possible help to make them feel welcome in their country.
With a population of over 120 million trying to meet high levels of efficiency, the Japanese are highly stressed and many of them are workaholics. Due to this constant stress, people take to alcoholism. There is increased frequency of respiratory infections and nasal allergies like hayfever. This was obvious right from the time we landed. We observed that people were always running and walking in a mad rush. As we traveled by the local metro trains, we noticed most of them sneezing and coughing. Mindful of not spreading the viruses, they had masked their faces. Such thoughtfulness is rarely seen anywhere in the world.
The Laughter club movement was initiated in June 2006 by two Canadians, Mary Tadokoro and Lisa Booth who took their Laughter Yoga Teachers training in Canada and came to live in Tokyo. Later, they were joined by Akira and together they opened many laughter clubs in Kobe, Osaka, Nagoya and Tokyo. At present, there are 42 laughter leaders trained by Mary and Akira.
Tokyo Events
We did five public seminars in Tokyo including one for the Indian Embassy. They were all very successful and we had an overwhelming response from the people and the media.
The first public seminar on 1st March was attended by about 50 people. We met Junio, a blind laughter club member along with his wife Satomi. In the very first laughter session, he laughed like crazy and said he had never laughed like this in his whole life. During our seminars on 2nd and 3rd we met a lady from the Tokyo city administration department who was keen to start laughter sessions in her office. She was quite supportive and assured us of any help from the local government. It was really encouraging to see the laughter movement spread cheer and joyfulness.
Though I thought it would be difficult to make the Japanese laugh as they are highly stressed out, but much to my surprise, they really opened up and laughed heartily without any reason. There were a few who could not laugh easily but they continued to fake laughter as they believed laughing was a great exercise for health. Participants enjoyed the session and felt very relaxed even though laughter was not spontaneous.
There are three laughter clubs in Tokyo and two in the suburban city of Yokohama and they mostly meet once a week. Two-day laughter leadership training was organized on the March 9th -10th, which was attended by 45 laughter leaders from all over Japan. Most of them were Japanese while others were foreign nationals living in Japan. The training went very well and all the leaders were pumped up to start new laughter clubs.
We even held seminars in Kobe, Osaka and Nagoya which generated a lot of media interest.
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- Click here to see the video
- Click here for interviews & testimonials
- Meeting with Japanese professor Yuji Kimura
