Laugh and the world laughs with you. Fart and you stand alone

Laugh and the world laughs with you. Fart and you stand alone. One of my favourite cousins wore a T-shirt with this on it - almost all the time until the shirt died its natural death from over use (contradicting myself, but artistic license prevails).

I spent the weekend laughing. Yes, just pure laughter for about eight hours a day. Why? Because I love laughter? Yes, but also, I wanted to purse another path of yoga - hasya yoga. A form of yoga that uses breathing (pranayama) exclusively and well, laughter.

A child laughs about 450 times a day, and as we age, we tend to whither down to about 16 times a day. What happened in all that time? Life happened. We were told that laughing was the opposite of being serious and seriousness is good.

I am taking a bold step forward. I choose to laugh. 

 "We are happy because we laugh" and not the other way around, says Dr. Madan Kataria, the founder of laughter yoga, or the modern day laughter yoga as we know it which came to life March 13, 1995. Which makes this post sort of a birthday celebration of sorts. It is also Magno's birthday today!

I trained with Magno Shavdia at the Osho Center in Köln. Magno is gorgeous, and pure health and joy emanates from his every pore. An Osho sanyasi, he hails from Georgia (not the US, but former Soviet Union).  He played rugby for Soviet Union's National Rugby Team and went from his studies of Art and Mathematics to Indian philosophy and yoga. And today, he eats, breathes, sleeps laughter. It is hard not to laugh with him.

The training to become a laughter yoga leader is exhausting to say the least - I went on the other extreme where I became so hyped up, I could not sleep. In a class of 12, we laughed till we cried, slept on each other bellies and laughed like little children, and walked through the streets of Köln laughing as a group. Imagine a big haired, very tanned Russian leading a mad bunch of laughing Germans, two other Georgians plus one Malaysian-Indian walking through the city for an hour and half LAUGHING out loud. Köln has seen crazier days but this was one where the city laughed along.

I am looking forward to laughing more with everyone now. I come from a family of laughter. Really, I do - my amama, and mom have very contagious laughter. My sister can set even a bunch of Germans in winter laughing their heads off - she laughs a lot, and we cannot help ourselves but laugh with her. Actually, that was Magno's line - if you can laugh in winter in Germany, you can laugh anytime.

This weekend, I am set for a trans-continent laughing exercise with my most loved family members - all on skype.  Going to be fun. 

Will keep you posted on further laughter adventures and pictures soon. For now, have a laugh!