laughter yoga

Today I laughed so hard I had tears in my eyes and my abs hurt. That doesn’t say much for my abs. I was laughing out loud, alone in my office. The door was even open but I didn’t care. Ok, I sort of cared when I couldn’t help making those kind of involuntary more high-pitched groan kind of laughs, but, by then it was too late. I was loving it. The cause of this absolutely out-of-control and yet blissful laughter was a website, dontpkethebear.com who had listed ‘the funniest auto-corrects fails’.

I know. Pretty lowest common denominator stuff. And I, like you, would far rather it had been because I was reading an erudite and yet cleverly hilarious farce which highlighted the problems of western civilisation and somehow managed to provide solutions while maintaining a whimsical and comedic iambic pentameter style.

Sorry, no. Funny iphone autocorrects.

I may have just been desperate to laugh. Really laugh. And make that weird noise.

I wondered when I had last laughed in that breathtaking way. It was in Vietnam. We were lucky to have dinner with a Vietnamese family in Hue and once we had eaten, the children sang some songs for us. The star of the performance was the 18 month old who had all the moves to gangnam style, which his brothers, sisters and cousins were singing. Gold.

http://youtu.be/bEJVcQ64s5s

Laughter. I really don’t want to say it’s the best medicine. But sometimes sayings get to be sayings for a reason.

When I was in Hanoi (like how I just slipped that in? Just adding an international woman of mystery flavour…although, two things…one, not much of a mystery that I was in Hanoi, given I blogged about it and, two, I think any kind of mysterious woman aura was blown when I described my groan-laugh…) I went to a Laughter Yoga session.

Since it began in India in 1995 the laughter yoga movement has spread to more than 3,000 clubs worldwide. 

 

The Laughter Club in Hanoi, launched in 2011, now boasts of being the world’s largest daily Laughter Club with about 200 people. About a hundred people, generally older Vietnamese women, meet at 6 a.m. every morning in a large square in Hanoi to spend an hour laughing.

The idea of laughter clubs is to gain the benefits of laughter by laughing for no reason. It’s not about telling. Hearty, roaring, silent and humming laughter, giggling, chuckling and smiling – at a laughter club, laughter is practised until it becomes more natural.

Our teacher was a tall, gangly young Vietnamese man with an elastic face. When he laughed, he really laughed. He led us through a series of stretches and laughter exercises and some fairly aggressive Vietnamese massage-type backslapping. For the newcomer, it is hard to get into initially. Self-consciousness is a stumbling block. But by half way through, I couldn’t help myself, I was laughing.

I’m not sure it is something I would rush off every morning to, but for these women, it is an important part of their day and their community. And it can’t be bad starting every day with an hour of laughter.