Certified Laughter Yoga Leader Training - Feb 25-27, 2011

Join Jody Ross, Certified Laughter Yoga Leader, Teacher & Laughter Life Coach for this exhilarating 3-day certification training & happiness retreat, February 25-27, 2011 in Minneapolis, MN.

Jody will teach you more than 100 Laughter & Breathing Exercises and many forms of Laughter Meditation and Relaxation. You will learn how to infuse laughter into your daily life. Your specialized training will enable you to lead any kind of group with confidence. As a bonus, on Sunday, you will co-lead a supervised Laughter Yoga session at The Kenwood Assisted Living with residents, families, and staff. You'll also take with you an original, comprehensive Laughter Yoga Leader Manual, beautiful diploma and chocolate.

The training kicks off with a Laughter & Chocolate party to benefit Angel Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to providing financial and emotional support to parents who have cancer and their families.

Location:
The Thresher Building
708 3rd Street South
Minneapolis, MN 55415

Schedule:
Friday, February 25, 2011, 6:00-9:00 p.m.
Laughter & Chocolate Party - All Are Welcome! Donations accepted for the Angel Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to provided financial and emotional support to parents who have cancer and their families.

Saturday, February 26, 2011, 8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m.
Laughter Yoga Leader Training

Sunday, February 27, 2011, 12:00-5:00 p.m.
Laughter Yoga Leader Training & Student-Led Class at The Kenwood Assisted Living

Tuition is $295. Current CLYL's are invited to attend the training as a Master Class for one day for $95 or two days for $195. Can't make the training but need a good laugh? Join us for the Laughter Party on Friday night.

To inquire or register, contact Jody Ross at cometolifeproject@gmail.com or call 612-708-0927.

Jody Ross is a certified Laughter Yoga Leader, Teacher and Laughter Life Coach, trained by Dr. Madan Kataria, founder of Laughter Yoga and Katie West of the Levity Institute. In addition to leading Laughter Yoga sessions and training Laughter Yoga Leaders nationally, she has developed groundbreaking Laughter Yoga techniques with persons with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. Photographs of her work can be seen at the National Institutes of Medicine in Washington, D.C., and are featured in the 2010 World Alzheimer’s Report. She also founded the first weekly Laughter Yoga Club in the Twin Cities, leading laughers from age 2-81. Jody has a bachelor’s degree in Corporate Communications from Drexel University, and lives in Minneapolis.

Laughter May Be Good for What Ails You - Charlotte Observer Article

The following article is from the Charlotte Observer.

Jody Ross' story starts like many others. 
For 15 years, she suffered from chronic health problems - pain, fibromyalgia, insomnia and bipolar disorder. She had searched in vain for a doctor or a treatment that could provide relief.

Two years ago, she found an unexpected resolution.

She was visiting the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. And as she left, still feeling desperate and hopeless, she passed a sign for a "Spirituality of Laughter" workshop. It was for employees only, but she ducked inside uninvited.

There she heard a Lutheran minister, Laura Gentry, discussing the medical benefits of laughter and leading the group in something called Laughter Yoga.

An hour later, Ross left the clinic feeling refreshed.

"What I noticed, aside from the fact that it was absolutely hilarious, was the connection with these people that I didn't even know," Ross said. "There's a sense of connection when you're laughing and looking into each other's eyes and having a shared experience. I felt great for hours afterward."

Ross became a certified Laughter Yoga leader and started the first Laughter Yoga Club in the Twin Cities.

Next month, she will visit Rock Hill to lead a class and a weekend workshop for anyone who wants to learn and teach this unusual exercise that got its start in India.

The exercise is appropriate for anyone, Ross said. She teaches people from age 5 to 80.

Classes incorporate light stretching and yoga breathing, but no difficult poses. No downward-facing dog. No bridge. No tree.

She starts by having people introduce themselves and laugh.

"I'm Jody. Ha. Ha. Ha."

At first, the laughter is fake, but "very quickly it becomes the real thing," she said.

Research shows that a fake laugh offers the same benefit as a spontaneous belly laugh, she added. And the benefits she lists are many - reduced stress, improved heart health, improved sleep and pain management, strengthened immune system and deeper breathing to improve bronchitis, hay fever and asthma.

"It's an incredible aerobic workout," she added.

After introductions, Ross said the class might create a "laughter car wash," with some participants moving their hands as if they're washing a car and others walking through the line, pummeled by laughter instead of water. Another exercise might involve talking in gibberish in a particular situation, such as persuading a police officer not to write a traffic ticket.

As you might guess, Laughter Yoga is not for everyone.

But Ross said even the skeptical find themselves joining in.

"In Minnesota, of course, people can be quite stoic," she said. "But it's so contagious, very quickly you lose that inhibition, and they're just in the moment. Even the ones that are really shy, they're the ones who end up laughing the most."

When she leads her Laughter Yoga Club in an outdoor park in the summer, Ross said she often sees people walking their dogs who pass by multiple times. "By the third or fourth or fifth time, they're walking by laughing with us."

Dr. Madan Katarian, the Indian physician who created Laughter Yoga in 1995, advises every Laughter Yoga professor to practice laughing daily, Ross said. She laughs alone or with her husband and 6-year-old daughter. "We laugh in the car, we laugh at the dinner table, for no reason."

"When we use laughter as a practice, we begin to find laughter throughout our day. Things we wouldn't have found very funny all of a sudden become amusing when we're in the habit of laughing as an exercise."

Before she started Laughter Yoga, Ross was in pain all the time. Today, at 40, her pain is 99 percent gone.

"I cannot tell you what a relief that is," she said. "I'm able to do so much more than I've been able to do before. I never would have thought that I would actually be able to be free of those things that plagued me for 15 years....It's very powerful stuff."