Portland Laughter Community

Alo-haa-ha!

Welcome to the home of Portland's Laughter Community!! Portland Laughter Yoga has been the premiere Portland metro area Laughter resource since 2008, offering Laughter Clubs & Classes, Laughter Meditation, 1-to-1 Laughter Coaching, Certified Laughter Yoga Leader Training, as well as special sessions for organizations, team building, corporate health & wellness, personal celebrations, seniors, caregivers, kids and more! This Meetup will be used to announce community Laughter Clubs, paid classes, workshops & training and special events sponsored by Portland Laughter Yoga and alumni and the greater Portland Laughter Community.

What's Going On?
Laughter Clubs are our main community event. Right now, our oldest recurring Meetup is the Hawthorne Laughter Club, which meets on Sundays at 4 pm in the Hawthorne Movement Center studio directly behind the Hawthorne Wellness Center. WE started in 2010 on Belmont and moved to our current location January 2011. There are other weekly clubs happening that are listed, a monthly Laughter Meditation, quarterly potlucks, as well as occasional special events. 

We would love to offer all of our events for free, but free space is hard to come by and Meetup is not free for the organizer, so we have a recommended donation of $5 to $10 dollars. This covers rent when applicable, plus Meetup and other related fees. No one will be turned away. It currently costs around $2k a year for expenses for our community. A large portion of this is rent. After club expenses are paid, extra money is set aside for community Laughter events such as the Starlight Parade, World Laughter Day, celebrating club anniversaries, community event booths, potlucks etc. Online donations can be made via PayPal.

We joined Meetup in 2011, but Portland Laughter Yoga has been holding clubs, classes and training since 2008. Meetup is simply another way to get the word out about Laughter related events. We think laughing is AWESOME and want to share it with everyone! Please do not think that just because not many people are listed as attending on Meetup that no one is going. We have many regular laughers that attend our functions that are not tapped into our Meetup community.

What is Laughter Yoga?

Laughter Yoga (www.laughteryoga.org) is a unique new physical activity that blends playful and energizing laughter exercises with gentle yogic breathing and rhythmic clapping and chanting. It is fun & easy! No sweat pants or yoga mat required. During the second half of a session we use intentional laughter as a tool, not an emotion during laughter meditation - we just sit or lay back and laugh!

Through group activity and eye contact, simulated laughter quickly becomes real, contagious and enthusiastic. By the time the laughter meditation starts people usually have no problem tapping into their inner laugh. We love Laughter Yoga for its ease and simplicity. Laughter has so many physical, spiritual, emotional and social benefits and anyone can do it! 

Much of our Laughter Community has been doing Laughter Yoga for years and as such we have developed our own style and moved beyond Laughter Yoga. We love playfulness, Gibberish and as such have fun with Improv, vocal expression and more. Although the bulk of what we offer is style Laughter Yoga, some events may differ and thus might be called something different, for example our monthly Laughter Meditation, which has Laughter Yoga and much more.

Founder, Andréa Crisp, has training in Laughter Yoga, Laughter Wellness and two different Laughter Coaching Certifications as well as coaching, counseling and EFT/Meridian Tapping training/experience. Find out more at www.AndreaCrisp.com