Yep, this sunday (feb. 29) the “happy at work project” arranged a clown course for some people, and I’m now a certified, first grade clown.

The story is this: Back in november, Lise Egeberg who is a hospital clown, asked around for contributions to a trip she wanted to take to Jamaica to visit schools, hospitals and orphanages and clown for the children there. It’s not like we’re swimming in money, but we decided to give her 1000$, and in return she gave us this training, and it was a lot of fun.

Starting from a simple warm-up, she soon had everybody tripping over invisible wires, giving gifts in the clown manner and making fools of ourselves in many other ways. It was great!

One exercise that made a great impression on me was about personal space. Take two people one walks towards the other, and the person standing still says stop, when he feels his personal space being invaded. When we did this normally, my personal space was a little less than a meter. But with the clown nose on, I had no personal space. I was not only comfortable with people getting really close to me – I was enjoying it. That was a powerful demonstration of the barriers we build around ourselves every day, and how clowning around and being more childlike can tear the barriers down.

And today after the course, I feel more open, more spontaneous and more alive. There’s a great power in clowning. Here’s a picture of the graduates.