It was the honor and privilege to organize and teach a Laughter Yoga session in Chicago for the Oprah Winfrey Show, at Oprah’s request in March 2007. Nothing came pre-cooked though. They asked me at two days’ notice to organize and lead a laughter session for Oprah’s make-up artist Reggie Wells in Chicago, some 2000 miles away. You just don’t say no to Oprah, so I made it happen.

(You can download and view this video on your ipod here (.mp4, 14mb).)





Thank you to the Midtown Athletic Club for opening their doors to us, Doug Dvorak for his invaluable help and contacts in making this happen, and Jeffrey Briar for his participation.

Oprah wanted to see how Laughter Yoga would impact her “resident cynic” and make-up artist Reggie Wells.

This class was beyond successful. In Reggie’s own words:

“Thank you Mr Gendry! I walked into your laughter session very depressed. It was Easter week-end and I was very lonely. What you had me do did not just lift stress from my body, it lifted stress from my soul.”





This segment has been broadcasted worldwide so far on 4/11/2007, 8/22/2007 and 01/01/2009 (the Oprah Winfrey Show has over 49 millions viewers in the USA alone and broadcasts in 140 countries).