Laughter yoga is acting, acting in its highest form, and in the fact that living life is acting.
Method acting is the term. It’s the form of acting that Marlon Brando did and it’s why he was considered the greatest American actor.
A truly great actor has lived a lot of life and consequently has a wide range of emotional experiences to draw upon. A truly great actor choose his emotions. “It’s onstage honesty.”* He isn’t acting; he is living his emotions on the stage. This is what they say Mr. Brando did. Every time he played a character, he embodied the intense emotions that that character portrayed, actually living those emotions. In this sense, he wasn't "acting". He was able to call upon these emotions in himself because he had lived them before in his emotionally wrenching early life.
In laughter yoga we do the same, only with positive emotions. We’ve all had the experience of laughing and we’ve all experienced the accompanying joy. This is what we recreate in ourselves in a laughter yoga session. I repeatedly tell participants it’s only my job to jump start everyone laughing and then it’s their job to self-generate their own laughter, with the support and contagiousness of everyone else, and with my continued modeling. Like Method Acting, it’s a process of creating the emotions of laughter.
Acting is a natural behavior, as natural as living life. As Shakespeare said “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players…” We choose our actions in life. We choose what to do. We can also choose our emotions. This is really what emotional maturity is. We choose how to respond to different situations. We choose how to respond when someone expresses anger at us. We choose whether to react or to stay calm and centered. A truly effective life is one where we are always choosing both our actions and our emotions. Laughter Yoga is a great way to practice this.
As one Laughter Yoga student put it, “It’s nice to have a larger than normal portfolio of feelings to feel and for no particular reason.”
*Method Man, Claudia Roth Pierpont, The New Yorker, Oct 27, 2008
Monday, July 13, 2009
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Favorite Laughter Yoga Exercises
Some of my Laughter Yoga students revealed their favorite laughter exercises and why. Here’s what they said:
The Handshake Laugh: “It felt the most natural and was a great way to start the sessions. Nothing quite compares to locking hands with someone sharing a laugh.”
The Static Electricity Laugh and The Tag Laugh: “My favorite laughs are the ones with a direct playfulness about the laughter, like the spark laugh where you touch someone’s finger, scream and then laugh; or the Tag Laugh where you touch someone like you were tagging them, then run away laughing; and the Seattle Rain Laugh that starts out with three quiet laughs and ends with the one big laugh because the sun came out. Just plain silly.”
Balloon Sword Fight Laugh: “It was fun to sword fight with everyone, taking a swing at somebody knowing they weren’t going to get hurt.”
Toss the Balloons: “There were moments when I just couldn’t help but laugh until I just about cried.”
Vowel Movement with Pom-Poms and Sword Fight with Balloons: “These are my favorites because it’s always fun to have props.”
Toss the Balloons Laugh: “My favorite laugh because it reminds me of when I was young. I used to always play with balloons. Because it has a significant relationship to my childhood, it makes me a happier better person.”
Seattle Rain Laugh: “I liked the difference between how the two types of laughs make me feel, the quieter laugh and then the explosion.”
The Wave Laugh: “This is my favorite where we pass the laugh around the circle. Because we are in a circle, it’s easy to see everyone’s laugh and that makes me laugh. I don’t know why but the laugh combined with the facial expression would just crack me up.”
The Scarf Toss: “It’s really crazy that this is my favorite laugh, but for some reason I just get real juiced and giggly when I start throwing all these scarves in the air. This other kid and I would always end up in the middle of the class tossing these scarves in the air and at each other and we’d be cracking up.”
The Vowel Movement: “This is my favorite laugh because it gives me that extra boost of energy right before the end of class.”
AND my personal favorite is The Hearty Laugh, where you throw your arms up in the air and laugh in an exclamation of pure joy!
The Handshake Laugh: “It felt the most natural and was a great way to start the sessions. Nothing quite compares to locking hands with someone sharing a laugh.”
The Static Electricity Laugh and The Tag Laugh: “My favorite laughs are the ones with a direct playfulness about the laughter, like the spark laugh where you touch someone’s finger, scream and then laugh; or the Tag Laugh where you touch someone like you were tagging them, then run away laughing; and the Seattle Rain Laugh that starts out with three quiet laughs and ends with the one big laugh because the sun came out. Just plain silly.”
Balloon Sword Fight Laugh: “It was fun to sword fight with everyone, taking a swing at somebody knowing they weren’t going to get hurt.”
Toss the Balloons: “There were moments when I just couldn’t help but laugh until I just about cried.”
Vowel Movement with Pom-Poms and Sword Fight with Balloons: “These are my favorites because it’s always fun to have props.”
Toss the Balloons Laugh: “My favorite laugh because it reminds me of when I was young. I used to always play with balloons. Because it has a significant relationship to my childhood, it makes me a happier better person.”
Seattle Rain Laugh: “I liked the difference between how the two types of laughs make me feel, the quieter laugh and then the explosion.”
The Wave Laugh: “This is my favorite where we pass the laugh around the circle. Because we are in a circle, it’s easy to see everyone’s laugh and that makes me laugh. I don’t know why but the laugh combined with the facial expression would just crack me up.”
The Scarf Toss: “It’s really crazy that this is my favorite laugh, but for some reason I just get real juiced and giggly when I start throwing all these scarves in the air. This other kid and I would always end up in the middle of the class tossing these scarves in the air and at each other and we’d be cracking up.”
The Vowel Movement: “This is my favorite laugh because it gives me that extra boost of energy right before the end of class.”
AND my personal favorite is The Hearty Laugh, where you throw your arms up in the air and laugh in an exclamation of pure joy!
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Breathe Correctly
In Laughter Yoga as in life, it’s important to breathe correctly.
Breathing correctly means two things: breathing through your nose and breathing from your diaphragm.
When you breath through your nose, the air if filtered, moistened and warmed. When you breath through your mouth, the air is dirty, dry and cold. We were designed to breath through our nose. If you’re not talking, eating, laughing or singing, your mouth should be shut.
When you breath from your diaphragm (located below the lungs and heart), your abdomen will move. As you inhale your abdomen will expand, blowing up like a balloon. As you exhale, your abdomen will deflate.
If you’re breathing incorrectly you’re probably hyperventilating, which simply means taking in too much oxygen by breathing too much and too fast. Most people in our society are hyperventilating without knowing it.
If you are breathing through your mouth, you are automatically breathing too much, because your mouth is three times bigger than your nose.
If you are breathing from your upper chest (as most adults are), you are automatically breathing too fast, as it takes less time to move air in and out of your chest. Breathing from your diaphragm automatically slows your breathing down.
In summary, if you’re hyperventilating already and then come to do laughter yoga, you could run into trouble getting light-headed, i.e. hyperventilating even more. When we laugh our breathing speeds up which is generally a great thing because it oxygenates the body. But if you’re already taking in too much oxygen, it can tip the oxygen/carbon dioxide ratio off balance. For me this started to happen, after many years of leading laughter yoga sessions. I learned that I had been breathing incorrectly forever, i.e. I had chronic hyperventilation. I have since corrected that problem through proper breathing and have been able to enjoy all the great benefits of laughter yoga again.
Breathing correctly means two things: breathing through your nose and breathing from your diaphragm.
When you breath through your nose, the air if filtered, moistened and warmed. When you breath through your mouth, the air is dirty, dry and cold. We were designed to breath through our nose. If you’re not talking, eating, laughing or singing, your mouth should be shut.
When you breath from your diaphragm (located below the lungs and heart), your abdomen will move. As you inhale your abdomen will expand, blowing up like a balloon. As you exhale, your abdomen will deflate.
If you’re breathing incorrectly you’re probably hyperventilating, which simply means taking in too much oxygen by breathing too much and too fast. Most people in our society are hyperventilating without knowing it.
If you are breathing through your mouth, you are automatically breathing too much, because your mouth is three times bigger than your nose.
If you are breathing from your upper chest (as most adults are), you are automatically breathing too fast, as it takes less time to move air in and out of your chest. Breathing from your diaphragm automatically slows your breathing down.
In summary, if you’re hyperventilating already and then come to do laughter yoga, you could run into trouble getting light-headed, i.e. hyperventilating even more. When we laugh our breathing speeds up which is generally a great thing because it oxygenates the body. But if you’re already taking in too much oxygen, it can tip the oxygen/carbon dioxide ratio off balance. For me this started to happen, after many years of leading laughter yoga sessions. I learned that I had been breathing incorrectly forever, i.e. I had chronic hyperventilation. I have since corrected that problem through proper breathing and have been able to enjoy all the great benefits of laughter yoga again.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
The Earth Laughs in Flowers
A large compact and perfectly round bud sits atop its leafy stem on this year’s peony. It’s the grandest plant in my garden this summer and it’s just about to burst open. You can feel it coming.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said “The Earth laughs in flowers.” I can see why. The burst of exuberance is just the same. It’s the culmination of all our positive energy exploding in a forceful eruption. Just as the plant’s energy culminates in its production of a flower.
I’m an avid gardener. Perennials are my favorite. They come back year after year, growing larger and stronger and more magnificent each repeated spring, summer and fall. Annuals are fine to scatter here and there for added color and interest, but the perennials are my constant companions. Each year as they bloom I see a correlation between our bursts of joy and theirs. We blossom when we laugh. It’s an explosion of joy. It’s power is undeniable. It can instantly clear a space of negative energy - sorrow, anger and stress. It’s the same when you place a bouquet of gorgeous flowers in a room. They light up the space and everyone’s mood along with it. They are healing and beautiful. Just as we are when we laugh.
Peak experiences aren’t the norm. They are those special moments that make life worthwhile. Like a plant when it finally makes its flower. Like us when we burst into joyful laughter.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said “The Earth laughs in flowers.” I can see why. The burst of exuberance is just the same. It’s the culmination of all our positive energy exploding in a forceful eruption. Just as the plant’s energy culminates in its production of a flower.
I’m an avid gardener. Perennials are my favorite. They come back year after year, growing larger and stronger and more magnificent each repeated spring, summer and fall. Annuals are fine to scatter here and there for added color and interest, but the perennials are my constant companions. Each year as they bloom I see a correlation between our bursts of joy and theirs. We blossom when we laugh. It’s an explosion of joy. It’s power is undeniable. It can instantly clear a space of negative energy - sorrow, anger and stress. It’s the same when you place a bouquet of gorgeous flowers in a room. They light up the space and everyone’s mood along with it. They are healing and beautiful. Just as we are when we laugh.
Peak experiences aren’t the norm. They are those special moments that make life worthwhile. Like a plant when it finally makes its flower. Like us when we burst into joyful laughter.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Smiling Cars
The cars are smiling in Hawaii.
The electric cars in Hawaii toot down the streets with a smile on their faces.
During my one-week stay on Maui I spotted two of them. They look like glorified golf carts. They’re all electric, and like many of the public buildings in Hawaii, they’re mostly open to the warm tropical air with little bodywork on the sides besides structural bars. They seem to carry an ever present water bottle perched between the two front seats. Most distinguishing, the front grill has a definitive smile pattern to it, a large deep smile with headlights for eyes.
My online search on this subject tells me that Hawaii is the first state in the US to create a transport infrastructure that will allow cars to run almost entirely on electricity, involving 100,000 charging stations by the year 2012.
I found Hawaii to be a very magical place. Special things, great and small, happened to me while I was there. The sounds of tropical birds filled the air; a school of small sharks swam in the water off our local beach; we had a close encounter with a family of humpback whales; we attended a five-course luau with music, dancing and food from four different cultures of the South Pacific; we spotted 2 rare red palm trees (the stalks were solid red).
The smiling cars were a perfect added treat.
The electric cars in Hawaii toot down the streets with a smile on their faces.
During my one-week stay on Maui I spotted two of them. They look like glorified golf carts. They’re all electric, and like many of the public buildings in Hawaii, they’re mostly open to the warm tropical air with little bodywork on the sides besides structural bars. They seem to carry an ever present water bottle perched between the two front seats. Most distinguishing, the front grill has a definitive smile pattern to it, a large deep smile with headlights for eyes.
My online search on this subject tells me that Hawaii is the first state in the US to create a transport infrastructure that will allow cars to run almost entirely on electricity, involving 100,000 charging stations by the year 2012.
I found Hawaii to be a very magical place. Special things, great and small, happened to me while I was there. The sounds of tropical birds filled the air; a school of small sharks swam in the water off our local beach; we had a close encounter with a family of humpback whales; we attended a five-course luau with music, dancing and food from four different cultures of the South Pacific; we spotted 2 rare red palm trees (the stalks were solid red).
The smiling cars were a perfect added treat.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Follow the Sound of Laughter
Just before beginning a laughter program for a group of retired teachers, I sat off to the side listening to the sounds of scattered conversations. They were constantly peppered with the sounds of laughter. “This is going to be a great group” I thought. “They all know and enjoy one another.” And so it was.
Years ago I took a four-day ferry trip from Seattle to Juneau. I used the thrifty mode of travel, sleeping on deck with the myriad of other interesting travelers. We had guitar playing, singing, joking, fun and laughter. I befriended two fun-loving young men on their way to Nome, Alaska, a place I had never heard of. An interesting college professor joined us daily on deck. Even though he was staying down below in a cabin, he knew this was where real life on the ship was happening. He was following the sounds of laughter.
I meet with a group of people each Friday at a coffee shop. Who actually makes it each week varies, but when it is a particular combination of four individuals, the laughter reigns. There’s something about our chemistry, our dynamics. I started this coffee club in an effort to maintain the sounds of our flowing laughter. Consequently others have been drawn in to it.
It’s a sure signpost of life – if you follow the sounds of laughter, you’re on the best road.
Years ago I took a four-day ferry trip from Seattle to Juneau. I used the thrifty mode of travel, sleeping on deck with the myriad of other interesting travelers. We had guitar playing, singing, joking, fun and laughter. I befriended two fun-loving young men on their way to Nome, Alaska, a place I had never heard of. An interesting college professor joined us daily on deck. Even though he was staying down below in a cabin, he knew this was where real life on the ship was happening. He was following the sounds of laughter.
I meet with a group of people each Friday at a coffee shop. Who actually makes it each week varies, but when it is a particular combination of four individuals, the laughter reigns. There’s something about our chemistry, our dynamics. I started this coffee club in an effort to maintain the sounds of our flowing laughter. Consequently others have been drawn in to it.
It’s a sure signpost of life – if you follow the sounds of laughter, you’re on the best road.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Cranium
I’ve never liked board games. Not as an adult anyway. They seemed boring, mindless, passive entertainment. When getting together with others on social occasions, I always preferred meaningful conversation, genuine connection, and engaging laughter.
But that was before Cranium.
I’d never seen my partner do a James Brown impersonation before. The laughter from that alone could last me a lifetime. It’s loosened him up and fed him to do more impersonations both on and off the Cranium board game.
An alliteration I created while playing Hoopla (one of Cranium’s offspring) morphed into a standard household joke. In fact I completely lost myself in a laugh-till-I-cried spell during that game, such that they had to turn off the timer until I recovered.
A friend’s recent Humdinger, both his warm-up concentration, and his subsequent delivery of a humming version of “Frosty the Snowman”, got me rolling in endless laughter. It remains a priceless memory.
I love Cranium because of the laughter it generates. Lots of it. And yet more laughter in the days and weeks that follow as the memories become household jokes as we work the humor over and over. It’s a great board game that stays with you, creating a treasure chest of comic memories. If you’re looking for some really good laughs – Cranium’s the ticket.
But that was before Cranium.
I’d never seen my partner do a James Brown impersonation before. The laughter from that alone could last me a lifetime. It’s loosened him up and fed him to do more impersonations both on and off the Cranium board game.
An alliteration I created while playing Hoopla (one of Cranium’s offspring) morphed into a standard household joke. In fact I completely lost myself in a laugh-till-I-cried spell during that game, such that they had to turn off the timer until I recovered.
A friend’s recent Humdinger, both his warm-up concentration, and his subsequent delivery of a humming version of “Frosty the Snowman”, got me rolling in endless laughter. It remains a priceless memory.
I love Cranium because of the laughter it generates. Lots of it. And yet more laughter in the days and weeks that follow as the memories become household jokes as we work the humor over and over. It’s a great board game that stays with you, creating a treasure chest of comic memories. If you’re looking for some really good laughs – Cranium’s the ticket.
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