World Laughter Day 2011 Celebrated in Sydney

World Laughter Day is celebrated on the first Sunday of May, which this year of 2011 falls on the first of May.  World Laughter Day (WLD) was conceived by Dr Madan Kataria.  He set the date and applied to the United Nations to officially declare it as such.  Having found his proposal got bogged down, he just went ahead and declared it himself.  And since then the world has been catching up.  For example, the City of Chicago this year recognized WLD.

Here in Sydney we were glad to have Dr Umesh Sahgal, President of Delhi Laughter Club join our local celebration and lead us in a laughter session on the 1st of May 2011. Dr Sahgal, a dentist, was first exposed to laughter clubs in Mumbai.  He then started the Delhi Laughter Club in Delhi, where he lives.  He said he initially approached people practicing yoga in the park and persuaded them to devote part of their time to laughter yoga.  He found with time some participants spent less and and less time on conventional yoga and more time on laughter yoga.  Laughter yoga became increasingly popular to the point where Dr Sahgal is now in charge of organizing nine laughter clubs in different parts of  North Delhi.

Dr Sahgal explained that he has expanded on some of Dr Kataria’s teachings in that he emphasizes the importance of the breath and oxygen even more.  In fact he led the Sydney laughter group out of their usual indoor setting to conduct the session in the open air of the adjacent playground.  Dr Sahgal also incorporates certain traditional yoga asanas into laughter yoga exercises, adding laughing sounds to certain poses that, without the sound, would be identifiable yoga asanas.  He calls these “exercises with laughter”, and the more hilarious exercises as “laughter with exercises”.  He also believes in positive reinforcement, with participants regularly praising each other with the words “very good, very good, very good.”

Dr Sahgal is no stranger to Sydney in that he appeared on Channel Ten’s news in the run up to the 2010 Commonwealth Games held in Delhi.

Below are clips taken on May 1 2001 at North Sydney Laughter Yoga showing Dr Sahgal leading the  group in a laughter session.

PS Dr Sahgal tells me WLD was celebrated in Delhi by a procession of about 1500 people! Their program consisted of laughter yoga sessions, a procession around the Japanese Park, and prominent personalities then addressing the laughter rally.