John Lejderman
Laughter Yoga Leader
John Lejderman
- Pioneer since the 1980s, before the invention of Laughter Yoga, in the promotion of laughter as a form of health exercise, as a meditation and therapy, and as a group activity promoting communication.
- Creator of the Laugh Yourself Daft Workshops
- 5 years president of the Montreal Laughter Club, and laugh leader for the Club’s Laughter Yoga sessions
- Meditation leader in various meditation centres
- Experience of personal growth therapies in groups and trainings
- Laughter Yoga Leader training with Dr. Kataria, inventor of Laughter Yoga
- Based in Montréal, Québec
1981-1993 • Laugh Yourself Daft workshops
John began on the “path of laughter” in the early 1980s in a period when he suffered from a severe case of depression. Fortunately, this led him, in searching for a way out, to discover laughter meditation, and he has been laughing ever since. It was also before the invention of anti-depressants such as Prozac, so John was fortunate not to get hooked on an addictive drug, and rather took the route of trusting the natural healing powers of the body through laughter and other natural therapies. Laughter is medicine.
Laughter meditation is a technique that was advocated by Osho Rajneesh in the 1970s. It consists of pretending to laugh to provoke genuine laughter. John loved the technique so much that he began to invite his friends, and those in the meditation centre where he practiced meditation, to join him in group laughter sessions. To facilitate the process of laughing for no reason, he began to introduce various playful laughter exercises as a way to warm up the “laughter muscles” and prepare for a session of free laughter for no reason. The result was a formula that very much like what later became known as “Laughter Yoga”.
John went public with the technique, organizing public workshops that culminated in 1993 in a “Laugh Yourself Daft” festival during the Montreal Just for Laughs Festival of that year. This activity brought together all of the laugh leaders in Quebec of that period to promote the laughter as an exercise.
1993-2003 • Clowning around
John had long entertained a desire to be a clown. Your clown character is a cartoon version of yourself, a way to laugh at a caricature of yourself. Clown is also fundamentally a form of physical comedy, a type of humour understandable to children.
During the next ten years, John turned his attention to developing the art of clowning, taking numerous clown classes and acting as a clown in various venues, including with Clowns without Borders, Dr. Clown and in cabarets. The spirit of the clown is the playful innocence of the child, the same spirit that emerges when play with laughter in laughing for no reason.
2003-2008 • Montreal Laughter Club and Laughter Yog
In 2003 John participated in the Laughter Yoga training of Dr. Kataria in Montreal. Laughter Yoga, invented by Dr. Kataria, was basically the same approach as the workshops that John had developed in the previous years. But Dr. Kataria’s Laughter Club movement was becoming a worldwide phenomenon. The time had come for John to rededicate himself to the path of laughter. He helped Michel Abitbol found the Montreal Laughter Club and functioned as the president of the club and as one of the laugh leaders of the club’s Laughter Yoga sessions, for five years. The club is still functioning.
2008 - 2018 • Tango, travel and happiness
In 2008 during a trip to India, John underwent a transformative experience, realizing the ever-present source of inner laughter. He no longer felt the need to use laughter as an exercise for further personal development. It was time to simply live a happy life. Learning tango became his favourite pastime.
As a translator, he could do his work through the Internet anywhere in the world. John became a happy, travelling tango dancer, a nomad, spending the cold Canadian winters in the warmth of India and Argentina. This is happiness in practice.
Many persons helped him progress along this long path from depression to happiness, and the time finally came to help other people to advance on their own path towards happiness
2018 • A new start for the Laugh Yourself Daft workshops
Nearing retirement from the translation business, John saw an opening to reinvest in the laughter movement he had helped to initiate so many years before. Leading laugh workshops is the most fun thing he could imagine doing as a retiring baby boomer. With a new website, launched on World Laughter Day 2018, the Laugh Yourself Daft workshops initiated a new stage in celebrating the joy of human laughter.
You are invited to join the fun!
Yale University course : Science of Well-Being
In February 2023, Joh completed the Yale University course “The Science of Well-Being” with a mark of 87.22%. This course is a theoretical and practical introduction to Positive Psychology, the science that studies happiness and how best to achieve it, i.e. the scientific study of what makes life most worth living, focusing on both individual and societal well-being. It studies positive subjective experience, positive individual traits, and positive institutions…it aims to improve quality of life.
Verification of certificate
Happiness ambassador
Certificate granted by Linda Leclerc of the École du yoga du rire on World Laughter Day, May 7, 2023. It was also the 20th anniversary of her Laughter Yoga school. Linda recalled having participated at the same time as John in the first seminar of Dr. Kataria in Montreal in 2003, which gave rise to the Laughter Yoga movement in Québec.
Other qualifications
John Lejderman has a M.Sc. degree in Computer Science from the University of Montreal, is a Certified Translator, member of the Ordre des traducteurs, terminologues et interprètes du Québec (OTTIAQ), and singer/songwriter, member of the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN). His translation services can be solicited from his translation website. Some of his recorded funny songs can be found here.
Laugh for No Reason
A fun, positive and unifying workshop
Laugh for No Reason
A fun, positive and unifying workshop
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