What we happened upon was nothing like any of the videos I have watched online, where the sessions seemed focused on physical repetitions of movement conjoined with laughter, fake and real intermixing and ebbing about. This was like an acting class. A bad acting class. A bad acting class where the teacher told the students to walk through the space and speak to one another in gibberish. Now, I don't know about you, but this really seems like getting off to a bad start. If the purpose of this get together is to release the tension we so predominately hold in our bellies, then why would you start off with the most forced cliches which involve speaking? I know it's gibberish, but this still activates the brain in a way that's completely different than making cow faces or shaking your hands to imitate the force of a deep laugh. It requires some degree of thought, especially when you lead up to "now go around and yell at someone in gibberish" and "now go apologize to that person in gibberish while singing a country western song!" I feel that leading a group in such a manner ventures away from some base laughter concept, and into the disastreous world of insincerity and hey-world-look-at-me-i'm-gonna-be-a-star mentality so excessively overflowing in LA. The last time I felt so uncomfortable I was at the gyn's being told to "scoot on down." My friend and I found ourselves by the door during the gibberish sequence where we were trying to quickly decide whether we should tough it out and stay. Then someone next to us in the tiny room farted. We left.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
this is no laughing matter
I went with a friend this week to our first "Laughter Yoga" class. I wanted to give this a go, because it was something that had once seemed so ridiculous to me. The forced nature of it. The knowing idiocy. In working to confront, engage, and hopefully transform my own judgements, preconceived notions, and self-righteous opinions, I thought now would be the time. I must disclose that my friend and I did not last very long. I believe we had only done the actual laughing bit for about 10 minutes before we hightailed it out of there faster than a walk of shame across a college campus.
What we happened upon was nothing like any of the videos I have watched online, where the sessions seemed focused on physical repetitions of movement conjoined with laughter, fake and real intermixing and ebbing about. This was like an acting class. A bad acting class. A bad acting class where the teacher told the students to walk through the space and speak to one another in gibberish. Now, I don't know about you, but this really seems like getting off to a bad start. If the purpose of this get together is to release the tension we so predominately hold in our bellies, then why would you start off with the most forced cliches which involve speaking? I know it's gibberish, but this still activates the brain in a way that's completely different than making cow faces or shaking your hands to imitate the force of a deep laugh. It requires some degree of thought, especially when you lead up to "now go around and yell at someone in gibberish" and "now go apologize to that person in gibberish while singing a country western song!" I feel that leading a group in such a manner ventures away from some base laughter concept, and into the disastreous world of insincerity and hey-world-look-at-me-i'm-gonna-be-a-star mentality so excessively overflowing in LA. The last time I felt so uncomfortable I was at the gyn's being told to "scoot on down." My friend and I found ourselves by the door during the gibberish sequence where we were trying to quickly decide whether we should tough it out and stay. Then someone next to us in the tiny room farted. We left.
What we happened upon was nothing like any of the videos I have watched online, where the sessions seemed focused on physical repetitions of movement conjoined with laughter, fake and real intermixing and ebbing about. This was like an acting class. A bad acting class. A bad acting class where the teacher told the students to walk through the space and speak to one another in gibberish. Now, I don't know about you, but this really seems like getting off to a bad start. If the purpose of this get together is to release the tension we so predominately hold in our bellies, then why would you start off with the most forced cliches which involve speaking? I know it's gibberish, but this still activates the brain in a way that's completely different than making cow faces or shaking your hands to imitate the force of a deep laugh. It requires some degree of thought, especially when you lead up to "now go around and yell at someone in gibberish" and "now go apologize to that person in gibberish while singing a country western song!" I feel that leading a group in such a manner ventures away from some base laughter concept, and into the disastreous world of insincerity and hey-world-look-at-me-i'm-gonna-be-a-star mentality so excessively overflowing in LA. The last time I felt so uncomfortable I was at the gyn's being told to "scoot on down." My friend and I found ourselves by the door during the gibberish sequence where we were trying to quickly decide whether we should tough it out and stay. Then someone next to us in the tiny room farted. We left.
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