Mumbai-based Yogesh Karikurve, India’s popular coach in wellness, well-being and happiness conducted his workshop in the UK for senior citizens, Rahul Laud reports
Yogesh Karikurve was here in the UK this month invited by Milaap – a socio–cultural organization in South England to do a Happiness workshop for their senior citizens. Prabha Shetty and Sheetal Shettigar who manage Milaap, felt, “that a variation in the workshops with a focus on happiness will be a welcome change for the members of various ethnicities from South Asia.”
According to Yogesh, “This was the first comprehensive Happiness workshop for The Happiness Factory. We had done quite a few online during the pandemic for people from about 15 countries. But targeting senior citizens was the first of its kind experience. “
The members of Milaap were senior citizens speaking different languages, but bound by the fact that they lived in London. Most of them knew each other but quite a few were new to each other too. Yogesh observed that, “One thing that bound them together was ‘Loneliness’.”
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“The Happyness Factory (THF) specializes in building communities through creativity, culture, and content”, informed Yogesh Thus at Milaap he chose to build communities of mid-lifers and senior citizens by connecting them through their common issues and likes.
What resonated with them the most were their similar backgrounds. Thus he used that to bring them together as one family/ community by getting them to know each other better. The participants had to introduce themselves and also give a story behind their names. During this time, most of them started to speak about their life and the others empathized with them. After this, they were made to let go of their inhibitions by playing with balloons to some serene music. All of them loved this activity and gave feedback that it made them connect with their childhood. These participants had an internal travel of more than 50 years in less than 50 minutes!!
The second day of the workshop witnessed participants on the same rhythm. Yogesh introduced some simple mindfulness exercises with tongue twisters, doing their wrong hand all the small things like writing, etc. The paper cup rhythm exercise was a bit tough for them but after working on it for an hour or so they enjoyed it and were able to finish it satisfactorily.
Organic Energy Buildup: On Day 3 all the members were feeling safe enough to open up. They volunteered to dance and sing and so the energy of the class was built up organically.. Adding to this, Yogesh narrated , “We had a series where each member would draw on paper and pass it on and each subsequent person had to complete the drawing without actually knowing what it was. They had to then discuss and build the whole picture. We also did visualization of their ‘happy moments’ in life and made them draw in simple warli (indigenous tribal art of Maharashtra) forms whatever they could imagine as their safe and happy place. They enjoyed sketching on small pouches given to them.
Emotions in Motion: On day 4 ,” The members shared their local language songs with others and ensured that everyone sang along. This cemented the bonding in the community further.This day was all about dancing. We introduced different styles of partner and solo dancing. These movements were simple yet fun and improved the motor activities and hand to eye coordination. The icing on the cake was dancing to the ‘senorita’ tune from a Bollywood movie shot in Spain, where they had to coordinate with their partners. A gentleman with a disability in his legs was seen jumping vigorously to the music.
Good to Verse: On the Day 5 members were divided into groups in a unique manner. They had to pick up chits which had names of different animals and had to enact those animals to find their ‘tribe’. Each group had to then write 2-4 lines more in continuity to the song given to them in whatever language they chose to write in.
On the last day – Finale – they came dressed in their best attire and got one thing each from home that they loved the most. The stories behind these things was very interesting and heartwarming. We started with a fashion show; where everyone walked the ramp to some music. Some of them could be seen dancing with joy. At the finale Yogesh shared his documentary film on Antarctica.
The ‘Ha Ha ‘ practice, the body rhythm, the Happy song singing and stress buster breathing exercises and discussed different ways of being happy at home, the happiness hormones and how to activate them and more importantly how they can manage any unexpected event that happens to them.
Yogesh also conducted a workshop on Bollywood dancing, tracing the different regional influences in Bollywood music for the Kingston county festival
Reflecting on his UK experience , Yogesh pointed out , “As I look at the world at large, most of the countries are battling an ageing population and the individualistic culture that is rendering most of them lonely , despite sometimes being surrounded by friends and family. The culture of Gen z leaving homes and migrating to far off places creates a vacuum in the lives of empty nesters who find it difficult to be motivated. “
Yogesh offered a consolidated experience of his traveling to and working with people from more than 50 countries across all the 7 continents and his certification as a happiness coach, applied theatre practitioner, international business professional and a storyteller.
Yogesh concluded, “The vision of THF is to build a platform for all such mid-lifers and senior citizens under one roof so that they motivate each other to reinvent themselves to their best version.”
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