Originally posted by: TonyPearson

"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!"
--- proverb

Often I get feedback from my readers that I focus too much on storage products in this blog, and have been asked to break out of the work world for a change. Fair enough! The first Sunday of May is designated "World Laughter Day". I am proud to be one of the founding members of the [Tucson Laughter Club] back in 2004, and we held our first World Laughter Day event on May 1, 2005 at Udall Park.

Over the past seven years, we have had four other clubs "spin off" from the main group to form their own club. However, for World Laughter Day, the five sister clubs (or five warring tribes, as some call them) put down our differences and got together for a day of fun. In keeping with the tradition of having these events outside, we were granted permission to hold our event at the University of Airzona mall.

While the Tucson Laughter Club is recognized as one of the oldest laughter clubs in the United States, there are actually over 6000 clubs worldwide in over 60 countries. Laughter clubs started in India, when Dr. Madan Kataria (a medical doctor) and his wife Madhuri (a yoga instructor) gathered people in a park to try laughter as a form of healing and exercise. Today, [Laughter Yoga] is practiced outside in parks or indoors.

Up until now, all of the World Laughter Day events in Tucson have been organized by the original Tucson Laughter Club, but this time we decided to pass the baton over to Gita Fendelman of [Curve's Laughter YogHA club] to take the lead. Here she is standing next to a large yellow sign with facts and figures about the history of World Laughter Day.

We had about 45 people join us in a large circle, and proceed with a series of breathing, stretching and laughter exercises. Many of the laughter exercises involve moving around to look at each of the other participants eye-to-eye, and with 45 people, this can be quite challenging.

The weather could not have been nicer. Clear blue skies, a slight breeze, and an unusually cool 75 degrees F. Last week we were in the nineties approach summer, so we were delighted the weather cooled down for this event.

As a certified Laughter Yoga instructor myself, I offered to help lead the events for World Laughter Day. We had plenty of other certified laughter leaders on hand, and so both Gita and Emily (from Laughter Yoga with Emily) served as co-chairs.

I brought my [CRATE battery-powered amp] and microphones so that we could project our voices loud enough to the entire group. There was no electricity anywhere near our location, so battery-powered amps are the way to go for these situations.

After two hours of laughing, we all lie down for some relaxing meditation. Some people use this time to pray for World Peace. In a delightful coincidence, later that day, US President Barack Obama announced that the [world was a better place] having eliminated one of the world's most dangerous terrorists.

I would like to thank Jeff from our local NBC News Channel 4 affiliate [KVOA] who came to interview Gita and video us while we did our laughter exercises.

For more photos from this World Laughter Day event, see my [World Laughter Day 2011 Photo Set on Flickr].

technorati tags: World Laughter Day, Tucson, Laughter Club, Laughter Yoga, University of Arizona, Barack Obama, Osama bin Laden, World Peace