Melanie Bloch laughs. A deep, full-throated laugh, it is the laugh of someone enjoying a joke among good friends. Slowly, however, it rises in pitch and volume to a different sort of laugh, a more manic laugh. It is now the laugh of someone enjoying a joke on their own while rootling through the bins at a bus station.
Then as rapidly as it started, it stops and Ms Bloch, our laughter yoga instructor, indicates it is our turn to copy. As inductees into one of the faster growing forms of yoga, we are here for an hour to laugh whether or not anything is funny. Although, to any observers at least, there is probably a lot about the situation that is.
So it is