I Was a Happy Man... Then One Day I Came Across Laughter Yoga

Danny Singh, UK and Italy

Danny Singh, born and raised in London, but now based in Rome, gives creative English language lessons and teacher training courses all over Italy and abroad. He also offers stimulating monthly presentations on language related issues at Rome’s biggest international bookshop and is visible on web TV www.inmagicartwebtv.eu with a series of interactive English video lessons. He is author of the book, “I was a happy man,,, then one day I came across Laughter Yoga”. He regularly attends Pilgrims TT summer courses as a Guest Speaker. Website: www.laughnlearn.net e-mail: singh_danny@hotmail.com

Ero un uomo felice…poi un giorno ho incontrato lo yoga della risata
(I was a happy man…then one day I came across Laughter Yoga)

Danny Singh has surprised everyone, including himself, by writing his first book in Italian. Although the title may appear to clarify the subject of the book, it does in fact cover a wide range of subjects, leading to animated discussions with bookshops insistent on putting it into one category or another.

The subject of Laughter Yoga is of course prevalent in the book. However, as the author has always used this holistic discipline as an instrument to teach English, it cannot be separated from his style and method of language teaching. Once this was discovered, he began receiving invitations from a variety of institutions and organisations keen to try out and experiment these methods. He came across Laughter Yoga (LY) in 2005. A few years later, he had developed his methods and his website, laughnlearn.

The book begins by describing Danny’s life around 2005, his first contact with LY, the first time he tried it in a classroom and his decision to persist with it, despite initial criticisms by supporters of traditional teaching methods. His first invitations came from outside Italy, Slovenia, the Netherlands, Spain and other European countries. Little by little, the invitations arrived in Italy too. He describes the locations he has visited, the participants he had in front of him and what exactly he did with them. He also observes and gives his impressions of the place, the people and the food. Primary schools, middle schools, high schools, companies, teacher training organisations and even third age associations are visited.

Pilgrims which has had an enormous influence on his teaching, his friend and mentor Mario Rinvolucri who experimented it with him in Canterbury, the IATEFL Slovenia, HUPE Croatia, the Portonovo conferences of 2010 and 2012 originally sponsored by LEND before Pilgrims recently took over, are all mentioned in the book.

The book is highly autobiographical, so we learn something about Danny’s favourite passions; good food, travel, cinema and football to name a few. He describes how Bernardo Bertolucci indirectly forced him to face his greatest fear and deal with it, how by changing his thinking on life, using the law of attraction, he has managed to reach many of his apparently difficult goals, even winning first prize in the raffle, twice in a row at the Portonovo conferences.

There are three important deaths in the book, two people very close to him and one student whose gross misfortune gave Danny the opportunity to prove how potent LY could be. All in all, the book exudes positivity and optimism and Danny doesn’t forget to show his appreciation to those who have contributed to make him the lucky man that he is.

Copies of the book can be obtained online from Amazon, from the editor festina lente based in Ferrara, from any decent Italian bookshop or directly from the author himself. An English version will be available in the coming months.

Please check the English Language Improvement for Teachers course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Creative Methodology for the Classroom course at Pilgrims website.