Laughter Games Workshop - Israel, cont'd

Last year in Israel, I had several opportunities to experience the energy and enthusiasm of Israeli "laughter leaders." It was a very powerful experience for all of us, laughter being so much needed in this country. (For more about what I learned and taught last year, see this.)

This year, in a session organized by Yehudit Kotler and Bat-Shachar Weinfeld, I led two more sessions for laughter leaders form all over Israel. It seemed even more successful this time, as I was more aware of what kinds of games they were looking for. (Here's the complete list of the games I had prepared - we managed to play about 20% of them.) This time, part of both sessions was captured on tape by Gidon Sheran (discs showing highlights of both sessions are available for $10 each).

The first of the three games he captured was A What. Playing it in Hebrew, the word for "what" is "mah" and the word for "who" is "me", providing more than ample cause for much bilingual chaos. And then, when we added the next object, for some reason it became "moo," which, though completely nonsensical, added just enough to the linguistic confusion to tip us over into sheer hilarity.

When we tried to play the next game, Estray Bonajour, since this was largely a Hebrew-speaking group, and a very silly one, instead of trying to sing what I was singing (an almost impossible task, since I was singing nonsense words), they all decided to create their own gibberish. The game turned out to be very similar to a game they already knew, which we played immediately after. This was a wonderful moment for all of us, as is any opportunity that comes along when the students can teach the teacher. (We made the balls out of plastic grocery bags - a ubiquitous resource in Israel - following the traditional bag ball construction method.)

The third came shortly after we had all learned how to do the Frog of Enlightenupment and decided to try playing the theater game Three-Headed Oracle. In case you don't know Hebrew, when the three wise frogs answered the questions, the first said "I", the second "think" and the third had to decide how to actually answer the question.

from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith

Games for "Laughter Leaders"

Last year I had a wonderful time teaching games to Laughter Leaders in Israel. Laughter Leaders are generally practitioners of a discipline/practice called Laughter Yoga that "combines Unconditional Laughter with Yogic Breathing (Pranayama). Anyone can Laugh for No Reason, without relying on humor, jokes or comedy. Laughter is simulated as a body exercise in a group; with eye contact and childlike playfulness, it soon turns into real and contagious laughter. The concept of Laughter Yoga is based on a scientific fact that the body cannot differentiate between fake and real laughter. One gets the same physiological and psychological benefits."

I was invited to a Laughter Yoga session by a very laughing lady named Bat-Shachar and was delighted and enlightened. The "fake laughter" really works, especially when it's as infectious as Bat-Shachar's. She did play a lot of games - a lot. In keeping with the nature of yoga teachers, games are very leader-centric. The goal is to help people laugh, by any means possible. So a game really comes down to a series of instructions - do this funny thing, laugh, now do that. This allowed me to understand yet another assumption that guides my work, an assumption that isn't as common to game leaders as I had thought.

For me, the goal is to use as few instructions as possible, and to transfer the leadership to the players, also as fast as possible. I consider a game successful when I can walk away for a few minutes, come back, and discover that people are still playing it. Better still, when it turns out that they've changed the game somehow, somehow really made the game theirs. Given how intense Bat-Shachar's workshop was, and how actively engaged she was, I'm hoping she and her cronies discover the usefulness, and perhaps even the value of my approach to games - before they burn out entirely.

Today, I'll be teaching a selection of pointless games (and their significance) to a group of about 35 Laughter Leaders. I hope I'll be able to make my approach, as well as my games, somewhat more useful to them. If you're interested, you can find the list of games I'll be teaching here.



from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith

About Pointlessness

"The Sound and the Fury," the game I wrote about in my previous post, is what one might call an archetypically pointless game, similar in archetypical pointlessness to the games in a collection I have named "More Games of Dubious Purpose," insofar as a secondary characteristic of pointlessness is in fact purposelessness, as I describe with pointed obscurity in The Well-Played Game.

What originally attracted me to the word "pointless" was, naturally, the play on words. "Pointlessness" not only describes the reason for playing the games (no point, no reason, actually, other than the sheer fun of it all), but also something about the nature of the games themselves. Pointless games are not played for points, or, if they are, the score doesn't matter.

There's no way to predict what will make a pointless game fun. It's too open-ended. Without score, without even a goal, pretty much anything goes. It's the players who make the game fun. The absolute pointlessness of the game does something to people. It gives them a chance to take responsibility for making the game fun. Sooner or later, somebody does something so unpredictably funny, that you just have to laugh.

Pointless Games tend to put people into silly situations. For no reason. In the Sound and Fury game, people can really do anything they feel like doing - make any kind of sound, any kind of motion - and everyone else not only accepts whatever is done, but they do it, too. And so people make the game funny. Because they can. Because it's more fun. They do things that are funny. They make funny noises. Everyone does them too. And everyone laughs. In Ha Ha Numbers (the game in the photo) you lie on someone's stomach while calling out someone else's number while trying not to forget to respond when someone calls your number. In Hand Land people find themselves lying in a strange position (on their backs, ear-to-ear), looking at a funny world of disembodied hands. And they start playing around. Acting out. Wiggling fingers, touching thumbs, making their hands talk to each other, making it fun. The very pointlessness of the games shifts the responsibility from the leaders to the players, from following the rules to the play itself.

Which probably explains something about the origins of my interest in Pointless Games. The play itself. The theater. The improvisation. Masters degree, don't you know, in Theater, as a matter of fact. Villanova. 1968.

It was during the workshop I gave for the Laughter Leaders in Israel, some 15 years after I first started using the term "pointless," that I began to realize just how deeply the very pointlessness of pointless games can reach - all the way into bomb shelters, all the way into the actual dark night of the veritable soul. What could be more pointless than having to wait out something like a permanent war? More pointless than trying to get people to play when they are all so very far from fun?

Most of the people who call themselves Laughter Leaders have had training in Laughter Yoga. Laughter Yoga is a discipline, pursued for the sake of spiritual, physical and mental health. Like all forms of Yoga. In Laughter Yoga people laugh, not because they think things are funny, but because it's "good" for them. It's a wacky idea - laughing when you don't really feel like laughing. Which is probably why it works so well.

Many of the Laughter Leaders who found their way to my workshop had already discovered that Laughter Yoga was not enough. In places like the Middle East where there is so much to fear and so much more to be angry about, laughter is very hard to sustain. It takes too much effort to keep going. It's very hard to find a reason to laugh, even when it's just for the health of it.

Playing a game - especially a pointless game, when there is no reason, no score, no purpose - is somehow more appropriate, reflecting more accurately the wackiness of it all. It's better than boredom. Much more fun than wondering when and where the next bomb will fall.



from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith

Talking about fun in Israel - conclusions

As the last days of this visit approach, I have yet one more experience to share with you, perhaps the one that touched me most deeply - a 9-hour workshop I conducted with Laughter Yoga teachers.

It was focused on what I call "Pointless Games." I had designed it at the invitation of Laughter Yoga and Gibberish trainer Alex Sternik, as something that would be of interest specifically to Laughter Leaders in Israel. I called it "Games that make people laugh - a workshop in the art of sustainable silliness."

The workshop was attended by only a few people - we had eight altogether. But these were an exceptional few - highly energetic, deeply playful, totally committed to making people laugh. Participants included several other laughter leaders (here's Bat-Shachar's website), game facilitators and trainers, a meditation facilitator, a belly dancer, a magician named Caliostro (who was "the primary magician" performing for the Israeli army in the 80s) , a gym teacher, and Shiri Ben-Dov, who leads games and works with an organization that conducts bachelor parties. Each brought their entire being into play - personally, professionally, spiritually.

It's been a long time since I've shared the concept of Pointless Games that I worked/played with people who understood the idea so deeply, so quickly - not just the games, but the immense value of playing without purpose, without score, without excuse - of playing for fun.

For me, this was the experience of Israel I most needed. For all the insecurity, the fear, the hatred, the violence, the worry, the passion, the crowding, the traffic, the sheer intensity of life here - even in the middle of a war - I found people here who welcomed the comparatively small gifts of funny games. I found Israelis who have affirmed with their very lives the wisdom of things like peace and laughter and the power of play, and who bring these very experiences to everyone they can reach - Jew, Arab, Israeli, Palestinian.

During this long/short stay I often felt, well, foolish, in thinking that I could help bring fun to Israel in a time of war. And here, near the end of my stay, I discover these people. True champions of baseless, purposeless laughter. Fun-bringing Israelis all.



from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith

The Limits of Fun - more notes on talking about fun in Israel

So, what have I learned so far about bringing more fun to Israel?

I'm glad you asked.

First of all, it's not such a good time for fun in Israel, as well as in general. Not when people are busy dealing with the Gaza thing. And the money thing. And the job thing.

As for the Gaza thing: if you're Jewish or Palestinian, it was a violence that was done to you, even if the violence was not your doing - a deep, shocking, deafening violence that was so thunderous you can't hear much of anything else - your family, maybe, your neighbors, your friends. You certainly can't hear anything that comes from the "other side." Not love, not grief, not caring, not explanation, not apology, not words of peace. And most definitely not play.

Play is one of those words that can only be spoken in a "still, small voice," that in times like these can be only be heard over the din of war by children and puppies. The rest of us have to wait for quiet, inside and out. Even clowns can't make themselves loud enough. Even people like the Israeli group called "Pharsh-the official military of the silly revolution" (thanks for the link, Pat Kane), or the "laughter therapists" you nevertheless might find doing their work in the bomb sheters in S'deroth; can't be silly enough to change anything - not right now.

But they're doing their work, nevertheless. And so, apparently, am I. Thanks to Alex Sternick, I'll be conducting my first Games and Laughter workshop, specifically for Israeli laughter therapists, giving them a chance to learn a few funny games, so they can give people a few more reasons to laugh. Like I said - nevertheless. Even though there is no reason. Except maybe sanity.

Teaching laughter, fun, games, play - it's a funny kind of work, a funny kind of gift we have to bring. Not anything that you might call a "cause." Not anything that you might think of as revolutionary. And yet, something having very much to do with peace, after all.




from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith