There Just Aren't Enough Laughs In My Life

I heard a man speak recently on the subject of laughter.  I expected the usual stuff, how laughter is the best medicine and so on.  I've been known to keep a handful of humorous books on my bookshelf to pull down and ask for a little help in the keep-on-laughing department.  All too often, there isn't anything to make me laugh out loud.

Although this one worked tonight--
              
              My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was sixty. 
              She's ninety-seven now, and we don't know where the hell she is.

I laughed and you could have heard me, and yes, if a man laughs in the forest and no one hears him, the joke was still funny.

Anyway, we were in a group, and he had us all whooping it up--you know "Ho-Ho, Hah, Hah, Hah," and so on.  Then he had us introduce ourselves to the person next to us at the table and then laugh out loud at them.  It is hard to force such laughter, but the whole thing was so silly, we were soon laughing at ourselves for real.  I'm still waiting for the beneficial effects, but I haven't been practicing regularly.

So, I decided to do a little digging.  Soon I had to attach a set of earbuds to my laptop, as someone near and dear to me was ready to knock my block off if she heard any more laugh exercises.  It seems there are innumerable YouTube clips of people teaching laughing yoga, which, as it turns out is so easy anyone can do it, unlike the yoga practiced by some in my  local yoga center.  I mean, I do what I can and sweat through my shirt at my weekly yoga class, but there are people there doing Hot Yoga--I mean I watch them mop up the sweat after some of those sessions.  They scare me.  Now, the laughter yogis--I didn't see one of these laughing yoga practitioners break a sweat.  That doesn't seem nearly painful enough to be good for you.  

Despite my doubts, there are apparently all kinds of teachers and participants out there.  Twice I saw forty (yes--40) different yoga laughter exercises performed.  I was also introduced to laughing clubs that are springing up all over the place.  Laughteryoga.org has an application that allows you to find the club nearest you.  The one in South Carolina on one of those islands near Charleston calls itself "Laughter At The Beach."  I could relate to that (no, that is not what I heard the last time I went shirtless at the beach).  

The one in Savannah had a more sober name "The Savannah Laughter Project"--there's something in their description that earnestly supports the notion that devoted laughter practitioners can have an influence on world peace and tranquility.  How you laugh it off when you take on such a responsibility was not mentioned.  

I did also see, courtesy again of YouTube, a series of exercises led by the world-renowned Dr. Kataria, a very interesting and amusing fellow.  My favorite was a series of laughter therapy exercises each punctuated by a rhyming wry comment.  I can't at this moment recall any well enough to do them justice, but that may simply mean I have as yet achieved very little of this particular form of enlightenment (or any other, for that matter) and I need more laughter and training.  I certainly buy the former, so the latter is almost certainly true as well.

It turns out Dr. Kataria has a series of five day trainings in Laughter Therapy coming up in Bangalore, India..But there is also one in Orlando, November 4-8.  I think the universe is trying to tell me something--I am not making this up--I have reservations for a timeshare in Orlando beginning on the 8th, .  Maybe I am being drawn to Orlando to become a Certified Laughter Yoga Professional.  Now that's not funny.