HEALTH - LAUGHING YOGA - PAKISTAN

Laughing yoga cultivates merry mindfulness

Police commandos from Punjab take part in a laughter exercise during a yoga session at the commando complex in Mohali November 14, 2008. — Reuters Photo

NEW YORK: Can’t touch your toes? Laugh it off.

Laughter yoga, unlike Pilates yoga, water yoga, aerial yoga and other offshoots of the ancient eastern practice of uniting body and breath, doesn’t aspire to sculpted arms and bendy backs.

Laughter yoga just wants you to be happy.

“You may not lose fat, but you will lose the idea that you’re fat,” said Sebastien Gendry, founder and executive director of the American School of Laughter Yoga.

“People come because it’s the exercise they can do and it makes them feel good,” said Gendry, who founded the school in 2004.

“It’s the easiest form of yoga. They can’t twist, they can’t bend, but they can do this.”

A blend of yogic deep breathing, stretching, and laughter exercises that cultivate child-like playfulness, Laughter Yoga was developed 17 years ago in Mumbai, India by Dr. Madan Kataria. Laughter Yoga International now claims 600 clubs in 60 countries.

Gendry, who was born in France, was the first American to train as a certified Laughter Yoga teacher.

Central to Laughter Yoga is the tenet that the body cannot differentiate between pretend and genuine laughter.

“We fake it,” Gendry said of the group classes he leads. “We simulate to stimulate. We go through the motions of joy to create the chemistry of joy.”

In one exercise attendees are instructed to repeat “ho-ho, ha-ha-ha” while clapping hands; in another they are directed to “picture yourself jumping for joy.”

The exercises are unapologetically silly and very short-20 to 40 seconds each in an hour-long class, Gendry said, to facilitate the shift from thinking to feeling.

“The goal is not to work on muscle mass,” he said. “It is to overcome critical thinking.” Another goal is to connect with classmates.

“Laughter is a means to an end,” he explained. “In hatha yoga (the yoga commonly taught in studios and health clubs), the focus is the breath. In laughter yoga, the focus is the “dristi,” or gaze, of the other. It builds community.”

It’s also easy. Gendry said it usually takes two days to master the fundamentals of the method. “For those who want to teach, it takes a week,” he said. “Truly, this is not rocket science.”

New York City-based fitness expert Lashaun Dale, who has been teaching movement, fitness and yoga for over 20 years, said she really enjoyed the Laughter Yoga class she attended.

“It’s a hoot,” said Dale. “It releases so much stress. You can’t help but laugh. First, there’s discomfort; then it’s hard to stop.”

Dale said the class favored gentle, healing movement over the intense stretching and exertion of the vinyasa flow of typical yoga classes.

“It is a way to do movement,” she said. “If you’re stressed out, you’re not taking care of yourself. You can’t get fit until you get balanced.”

Humor can boost the immune system and lower blood pressure, according to the Centers for Disease Control, and laughing for 10 to 15 minutes a day can burn 10 to 40 calories.

Gregory Chertok, sport psychology counselor and fitness trainer at the Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Center in Englewood, New Jersey, said there is a staggering amount of documented findings on the importance of mood to behavior.

“It (laughing) is not like doing a cardio workout or a plank (exercise),” said Chertok, who encourages his athlete clients to notice their moods. “It’s less of a physical, more of a social, benefit. Engaging with people is an enjoyable thing.”

Chertok noted that writer and researcher Norman Cousins, whose book “Anatomy of an Illness” influenced Kataria, famously referred to laughter as “internal jogging.”

He said the Self-Determination Theory, a psychological theory of motivation, says that anyone seeking a healthy lifestyle must feel three things: autonomy, competence, and relatedness.

“A person who is not physically able to do more strenuous yoga may feel more competent and related in a setting like this (laughter yoga),” he said.

Of course, as Pandora discovered to her dismay, even openness has consequences.

“You cannot open up your box of emotions separately,” Gendry explained. “Laughter and tears go side by side. The more you laugh, the more you cry. You can’t avoid that.”

OPINION - PAKISTAN

Delusion of revolution

Revolution is easily the buzz word these days. Honchos, or at least their supporters, are besotted with the idea of some kind of a frenzied uprising against the status-quo to somehow throw the incumbents out of the window, cherish the ‘change’, make some noise, and then, if needed, decide the future course of action.
Metaphors of massive upheavals of catastrophic nature are frequently being flaunted by the politicians. ‘Tsunami,’ for example, is used by the Chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Imran Khan to define his political might. Never mind that even a superficial analysis of this term is enough to make one sick to the stomach. The blood-cuddling horrors related to tsunamis notwithstanding, Khan’s proposed plans also do not commensurate with the radical choice of his words. I’d rather he used a milder metaphor, because what he is claiming to do is obviously not ‘revolutionary.’
Not only him, but all political leaders in the opposition have jumped on the bandwagon to woo the impressionable electorate.
So what, really, is a revolution?
First, a revolution always transpires abruptly, and not slowly, over the course of months or years. Plans of ‘gradual’ reforms in a system, however momentous, cannot be called a revolution. The overall system should change in one go, because if the transformation is slow and gradual it wouldn’t be able to change the entire system.
Second, a revolution revamps the entire system, with drastic concurrent changes. The underpinnings of a society should change. For example, if the judicial system remains the same and only few judges are replaced – or reinstated – it can not be called a revolution. It is merely a case of few persons who are given their jobs back.
No matter how much clean water you put in a cesspool, it still stinks, and will remain filthy forever. Likewise, without major structural transformation, and a realistic alternative plan, introducing ‘clean politicians’ to a system that is rotten to the core will never have the desired effect.
Sociologists have discerned three major kinds of revolutions – those caused by society’s economic polarisation, and the deep cleft between the haves and have-nots; those of a liberal and democratic nature which purely have roots in the human nature, and its urge to live a free life without coercion; and third, those revolutions that are ideological in nature and have least to do with economic aspect.
History contains quite a few with examples.
French Revolution, 1789, was more liberal and democratic in nature than materialistic. The study of its causes reveals that although there were widespread economic and political grievances amongst the Bourgeoisie and the Peasantry, the main instigator of the revolution was the realisation amongst the masses of their right to live free. Philosophers like Rousseau propagated the ideas of freedom and human rights, and paved the ground for the rebellion. “Man is free, yet everywhere he’s in chains,” said Rousseau.
To quote a more recent example, the Arab Spring is also a manifestation of man’s freedom-loving nature. There was an Arabic sign frequently used during the uprisings: “Ana Rajul” – I am a man – a free man. The New York Times’ columnist, Thomas L. Freidman, discussed this ostensibly simple, yet profound symbol in one of his articles: “If there is one sign that sums up the whole Arab uprising, it’s that one,” observed Friedman.
The 1979 Islamic Revolution of Iran is an example of ideological revolution where the masses rose to the call of their spiritual leader, late Ayatollah Khomeini, to establish an Islamic government.
But we, in Pakistan, have a very unusual understanding, if any at all, of the word revolution. We focus on superficial aspects rather than digging deep into the theory.
To a person whose basic understanding of a bird is ‘anything that can fly,’ even a polythene bag flying out of the garbage heap is a bird. Similarly, due to lack of necessary cognizance, anything that is loud, frantic, and emotional sounds like a revolution to most of us. A public meeting of thousands, a crowded press conference, a well-attended dharna, a brawl at a talk-show, or even a pop concert – everything seems to bode for a ‘revolution.’
That’s because in a society emotionally as hyper, religiously as zealous, and academically as illiterate as ours, selling utopia and dreams in the name of revolution is not an art. To be fooled is a natural tendency for such an impulsive nation, and politicians know it quite well. There is, I believe, no point in lamenting after being hoodwinked that the leader is a demagogue – interestingly defined by Henry Mencken as ‘one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.’
After all, we are the ones who lack the vision to distinguish fact from fantasy. We are the ones who revel in delusions.