Class #2878

Wunda Chair Spirals

40 min - Class
178 likes

Description

Explore the spirals in your body in this Wunda Chair workout with Jennifer Golden Zumann. She moves through a quick class, challenging the entire body by adding rotation to many exercises. She also works on articulation of the spine by adding a rippling motion to movements like Swan, Pigeon, and much more.
What You'll Need: Wunda Chair

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Hello. I'm Jennifer Golden Zumann, and today, we are going to a workout on the Wunda Chair. We're gonna move through a good-pace, quick workout to get the whole body moving and try to explore some sense of spirals and rotation. We're gonna start with leg pumps, so we'll start with the feet parallel. We have spring tension right now.

We've got this on two springs on a medium tension, so it's not the heaviest you've ever done, but it shouldn't be extremely light either. We wanna use it to where you feel that there's resistance on the way down and a good resistance on the way up. Let's start with our arms crossed in front of us, and just begin by bringing your heels together and the knees just a tiny bit apart. Find your sitting bones on the seat, and imagine that your sitting bones are driving through the seat and down into the floor while the top of your head is reaching straight up towards the ceiling. Let's draw the air in as we press the pedal down, and then allow the resistance of the pedal to help expel the air on the way up, filling with air and pumping it out, seeking the stomach massage within this exercise.

Let's do three more, keeping the pelvis nice and still. Two and one. Good. Now, let's open the arms to a W position. Imagine there's a wall behind you, and let's rotate out through the legs.

And again, press down and up, filling with air and then pumping it out. Now, as the legs press down, bring the arms up, and I want you to imagine the scapula winding their way across your back like a ringing bell. Up and out, and down and in. So we begin to feel a circular motion through the shoulder blades as we move. Good.

Two more. And one. Now, keep the arms open. Here, as we press we're gonna twist. Let's twist to the right first.

Twist and unwind. Still keep both sitting bones anchored. Don't change those. Feel the weight in both feet, pressing the whole time, both on the way down and the way up. One more to each side.

Good. Now, we'll twist to the right and stay there. Press down with your legs. Now, turn your palms up and open, and we're gonna pump the pedal in a short, quick movement. Bring it up, and bring the arms up slowly, and then down.

This is a lot of abdominal activity. One more time. Bring it up. Two, three, four, and down, two, three, four. Turn to the other side.

Press the pedal down. Keep those sitting bones both down, and we'll pump that pedal up as the arms travel. Three, four, and down, two. Concentrate on the balance in your sitting bones. Don't worry about how far you twist.

That's not really that big of a deal. Good. And let's turn back to center. Great. Now, bring your hands to the front of the seat, and move your bottom of the front of the seat so your holding yourself up with your arms.

Now, I don't want you to stick the tail back here. I actually want you to almost curl it under, and now the legs press down and up, and two. Bring your knees up. Three and four. Good, and have a seat.

Back. We're gonna do single leg now, so let's place your right heel on. Keep your hands by your sides here, and use them to sit up tall. I like to kind of use my ... I don't necessarily get my palms all the way down.

Sometimes for me, that brings my shoulders down, so in order to keep the rings of your ribs stacked up, you may need to be up more towards your fingertips. So the right heel is on. Your left leg is gonna stretch away. If that causes you to tuck back, go ahead and let that leg be lower. That's fine.

Inhale. Press. Exhale. Resist up. Please work that spring on the way down and on the way up. Don't just give into it and let that spring take you up. One more time.

Down and up. Switch legs. Work the spring down. Work the spring up. Down and up.

Let's do three more. Two and one. Good. Let's just step right down off the front. We're gonna come around to the back of the chair now.

So we're gonna do a rippling motion with the spine. We're gonna start off with a hamstring stretch motion, so you're gonna bring your legs in close. We're gonna fold forward and bring your hands down to the pedal. In this first position here, I want you to lift your tailbone up, and I do want you to come forward so your thighs are just about almost at the seat. You can even use the seat.

And your spine is straight. So when we begin here, we're gonna press that pedal down with the spine strait. That means it's not gonna go very far. When you've gotten as far as you can go, we're gonna curl the spine and arc up like an angry cat, and then adjust your spine and extend down. And ripple through the spine to curl up.

Couple more times. Extend down and curl up. One more. Extend down and curl up. Good.

Curl all the way up. This is gonna be a little bit of a theme, this ripple motion. We're gonna take this now into a small swan or just a ribcage swan, I'll call it, so we're gonna lay down with your pelvis on the front of your seat. Your feet are gonna be on the floor here, so it's a much smaller movement. Your feet are on the floor.

We're gonna press the pedal down once again. So before we move, whenever you find yourself in this position, before you move, I want you to set up your body like you're doing a plank, so we're not gonna let the shoulder blades sink. Wanna connect the shoulder blades around the ribcage. Feel firm with your hands. Now, we're gonna come up in a swan motion.

It's a smaller movement than it is when you're all the way on the chair, because your ribs stay down, but now we're gonna tip the pelvis. You're gonna tuck back. Round your spine up, lifting your belly and arcing your spine, and then press back down. Snake forward, eyes, ears, collarbones. Pivot and round it down.

Two more times. Extend it up and round it down. One more time. Extend up. Round it down.

Now, we're gonna switch positions, so when we're down here, your belly is lifted, so I want you to lift up your belly and arc away from the pedal. You're pressing your thighs against the edge of the seat to get a lift in the belly as you arc, and then you pivot your pelvis to extend your spine on the way back down. Yeah, so you actually use your legs against the seat to give you a little more motion, and we get to explore the way the position of the pelvis sends the spine into the direction that we want it to go. One more time, and extend down. Good.

Drop the head at the end. Now, we're gonna take that one step further and do that all way down into our swan position, so in order to get into this, I want you to bring your hand to the pedal. You're gonna press it down. You're gonna set those hip bones up at the front of the chair. Now, make sure you hover the pedal here.

It's more tension than sometimes we do as swan, but that's because we're gonna wanna see-saw the body a little bit. So we're going to come up into an extension first, ears, collarbones up. When you get to your highest point, you're gonna tip your pelvis so your legs go down, rounding your spine and arcing the spine back down, and then extend forward. Actually looks like a dolphin. We should call this dolphin swan.

And then bring it back down. Yeah, it looks just like a dolphin and looks gorgeous. Forward. Lift through the ears, the eyes, the collarbones, and then explore that relationship with the legs. Okay, can you reverse it now?

This is hard. This is really hard. You've gotta lift it up, and then the spine ripples back down. Yes. Lift it up.

Beautiful. And ripple back down. I'm just gonna give her a little feedback here to help that lift of her pelvis. Everyone's spine's a little different, and that is quite all right. And then step off the back.

Now, we're gonna take the tension down just a little bit for this next one, so instead of this medium, we're gonna go just a little bit lighter, but I think we're gonna still keep two springs on. So let's come down, unless I change my mind. Let's do one spring up high, so I'm gonna put one heavy spring on now. Okay, then we're gonna do pigeon, so we're gonna start by picking up your right foot and putting your leg forward. If this is too much on your knee here, then you can put a cushion underneath.

That's fine. Are we okay on the knees here, everybody? Okay. We're gonna do the same motion here, so we're gonna roll forward and bring your hands to the pedal. And again, we're going to round down and extend up.

And two, and extend up. Two more. Round and extend. Try to lead some more of this motion from the sacrum, so right here. Wait for a second, Denise.

So I'm gonna have Denise stay here for a second, 'cause I want her to imagine that from the sacrum here, this motion of the skin of the sacrum pulling up, that's what I want her to feel leads the way up. And then she's gonna do that again, so as her head comes down, the pelvis reciprocates down, and then the skin of the sacrum pulls up to bring her back up. Now, from this up position, we're gonna put the left hand, so whichever is the opposite of the leg, that hand's gonna come to the pedal, the same side arm, so here it's our right arm is gonna come to the side. Now, the act of rotation is going to press the pedal, so we're not trying to go down so low. We're just rotating, and then let the spring unrotate you, derotate you, rerotate you back to center.

And again, use the rotation of your spine to move the pedal. Don't worry about force downwards. And then keep working that spring to bring it back. One more time. Good.

And bring it back. Okay, from here, bring your foot to the pedal. This is not a big movement, but you're gonna press and resist. Now, I'm gonna stand up on my back leg. Depending on height, you might need a little more height or you might need to come a little closer, so I'm up on my toes on the back here just to get a little more height so I can get a little more extension in that knee.

It's a small motion, but it's a really nice knee-strengthening motion. And one more time. Good, now from here, you're gonna take this leg. We're doing a little routine here, so we're gonna take this leg that's up, and you're gonna turn to the side. The leg is gonna be up with you on here, 'cause we're gonna tip out to a side plank now.

So we're gonna start by bringing your arms out to the side. Start to lean out, and then tip. Gonna set up your hip in the middle so when you tip, you can just tip right over, and you find a hover position. I want you to straighten that leg, the free leg, and flex the foot. Imagine both hands and the foot and your head are all against walls of a box, and then you can let the foot and the hand relax a little bit, but keep that sense, and then slide the bottom leg out straight as well.

All right, so we're bouncing on that side here. Let's come up and arc, and let's turn and look out at the beautiful water and then back down, and look down towards the floor. The arm's gonna come overhead, and up. So we're integrating a sense of spiral without even actually having to move the spine in the spiral, the trunk. We're just moving our inner body in a spiral.

And down. And now, we're gonna join that by actually moving the trunk into a spiral, so rotate your trunk. Keeping your hips steady, rotate your trunk so both hands are on the pedal. And we're just gonna pump the pedal here. Press and resist.

Good. Press and resist. Yes, very good, keeping nice and even from the hip to the bottom. Now, let's split the legs, so the top leg goes back. So I'm just gonna set you up here for a second, so go ahead and feel me here.

Get both hands back on that pedal. Mm-hmm. I want you to feel, again, feedback at both feet and both hands, feedback, and now lift the belly and press the pedal down. Get that arc quality again, and snake up, and arc down, and snake up. One more time.

Arc down and snake up. Good. All right. And then come up from this side here standing up. Well, I hope you guys remember what we just did, because that was a long series. I remember.

I'm just kidding. Let's get the other leg up. We're gonna start with pigeon. Okay, so our leg is up here, and we're gonna drop the head and bring it down, and we're gonna snake the spine down. As we go down, imagine there's another hand at the top of your head, and all three of those hands are pushing the pedal together, and then the sacrum lifts you up.

The skin of the sacrum pulls up towards your skull to lift you up. And again, down and up. Two more times. Down and up. Good.

One more. Down and up. Okay. Great. Now, bring that right hand to the center of the pedal. The left arm is gonna be out to the side, and use the rotation to create the movement.

My pedal hardly moves. That's about it on this side. That's fine. And then let the spring help you return. And again, rotate, and let that press the pedal, and let the spring help you return.

One more time. Rotate and return. Good. Bring your foot to the pedal, up on the back leg as you need to, and we'll just do a few presses here. Press and resist.

So while it is a knee strengthener, it's actually also moving the leg and using the spine to hold upright. One more time. Good. And then we're gonna bring this leg, swing it around so you're sitting on it here, and you wanna make sure that that hip, that when you tip over, this hip bone ends up right on the seat here. So we're gonna tip it out.

Tip yourself out. First find your points: your palm, your foot, your other palm reaching towards the ceiling. Feel like you're in the box, so you're pressing into it, but it's also giving you some feedback, and then stretch that bottom leg out. You can soften through the hand and the foot now. Good.

And then go ahead and begin coming up. Look out the window and then down. Look down towards the floor. Great. Now, make sure the rest of your spine is maintaining its position and the winding that we're doing is all indoors, not outdoors.

This one is the indoor rotation. The outdoors don't really rotate so much here. One more time. Mm-hmm. Indoor rotation and on the way down, keep it indoor rotation.

Now, we're gonna make it outdoor, because we're going to twist the torso and put both hands on the pedal. Mm-hmm. Good. We're gonna pump the pedal here. Bend the elbows in and out. Good.

Each of these is a deep massage in the organs, deep massage. Mm-hmm. Let's tip you forward just a little bit. I'm gonna tip you forward just a little bit here, Denise, so we get ... There we go.

There we go. You feel secure? Yeah. Now, she's gonna split the legs. Split the legs, guys.

And we come up. We're gonna get a ripple again, and arc down. Mm-hmm. And I'm just gonna give her some feedback right here, so this is a really good cuing to help her feel that top hip and bottom hip stability. So I'm just gonna put my arm right and help to hold her legs so she balanced.

That's gonna prevent her from overworking that low back. One more time. Up, and then arc the belly down. Beautiful. Okay, let's come up from here, and now we're gonna lie down on the floor in front of the chair, so you're gonna lie on your back.

We're gonna hold the sides of the frame. Okay, we're gonna bring the legs straight up towards the ceiling. For those whose hamstrings are very tight and bringing your legs straight up is a challenge, for those of you, you can bend the knees instead, but otherwise, we'll bring those legs straight up towards the ceiling. Bend your knees in and bring them up. I really avoid bringing the legs straight up from the floor unless you know that you can keep stability in your spine.

That's one of those risky moments. So we're gonna start by keeping that pelvis perfectly still. We're gonna open the right leg to the right. Just open it straight out to the side as far as it can go, and then feel it elastic recoil back. We're not even trying to use the inner thighs so much.

Inhale. Feel it rotate. No tip of the pelvis yet. And then exhale. Bring it up.

So right now, we're doing it. The leg is going straight out to the side, straight out to the side, and back up, keeping the sacrum right in the middle. Good. And back up. Now, we're gonna let the sacrum shift slightly with it, so when the leg gets to its endpoint, the pelvis will shift, and the top leg will reach straight up towards the ceiling, straight up, and then it will all plug back in, and the leg comes back up.

This is a subtle movement, but it does a really great job of connecting the legs into lumbar spine. The leg reaches up in that rotation. Then, it all plugs back in, and the leg comes back up. We're gonna do one more to each side, and this can certainly be done on the mat, but it's really nice to have the stability of holding the frame of the Wunda Chair while we do it. Mm-hmm.

We want to avoid any side bend as we do it. It's just a really simple rocking side to side. Good. Now, the next step of it is going to be to wind the hip with it, so the leg opens to the side. We let the pelvis tip.

Then, that leg sweeps down as you correct the pelvis back to center. Sweep it back open to the side. The pelvis tips, and we unwind back to the center. Other side. Open and tip, and wind it down as the pelvis returns.

Wind it back open and back up. We'll do one more of these to each side. Open, tip, and rotate. Sweep around. Open back up, and last one.

Tip and wind it down. This is a great way, once you can get the hang of this exercise, to correct popping hips. Bring your legs in towards your chest for a moment, and then we're gonna stretch them back up and roll over to touch the top of the seat. Roll back down. As soon as the pelvis lands, bring the right leg down and away, stretching the pubic bone away from the navel, and then roll it back in.

Once the legs meet, they roll back overhead again, and then they'll roll down. The other leg lowers away. Pubic bone stretches away from the sternum. The hip rolls back into the socket and over. Let's image the organs and the ball of organs in the abdomen, so as we roll down, we're rolling that down.

As the leg goes, it continues to roll, and then it rolls back, and we take it over. One more time. Roll it down. Lower the leg away and back up. One more time.

Over, and bring it all back down. Good. Okay, we're gonna flip over to do swan now, so we're gonna roll over onto your belly and put your hands on the pedal. This one is a great opportunity to get the relationship between the arms and the sacrum. I'm gonna start her pedal a little bit lower.

So I know she's got a little bit looser shoulders, so what I'm gonna do is to come up on chair here, and I'm just gonna bring her pedal down. What I mean by loose shoulders is ... That sounds kind of funny, 'cause I'm giving her modification 'cause her shoulders are loose, but what I mean is that her shoulders themselves are looser than her thoracic spine, so when she goes through the stretch, her shoulder drops out of the socket. So if she starts too high, she's gonna have a hard time finding the right position for the exercise, so I'm just starting the pedal a little bit lower for her, and she'll scoot back a little bit to begin. I always, when I do this, make sure they know I am holding the pedal at this height.

I will not move away without your permission, and don't move away without letting me know, okay? Now, bring the head down. Feel a stretch through the side to the shoulder blades, and imagine the muscle from the inner arm attaching all way down into the sacrum, so we pull and lift up through the ears, eyes, crown, and open up that upper spine. Now, there's a really beautiful moment on the way down. We lift the belly, and it's almost a ripple still, even though we're not gonna flex the spine.

Lift the belly, and stretch back down. When we get to the end, feel like a Slinky in your waist and ribs as the pedal stretches you just a little bit, and then it recoils to bring you back up again. It can be tiny. Doesn't matter, but we just wanna make sure that we're honoring the connection of the shoulders to the ribcage. One more time.

Give it a good pull. Good. Imagine that the top of your head, if it were to continue its arc, it would arc back to your heels, and then bring it back down, feeling a ripple massage up the front of the body. Very nice. Okay, I'm gonna take the pedal for you.

You can take your hands off. That's the safe way for her to get out of this position. Okay, let's go ahead and come up now, and you're gonna stand facing the chair. Put your right foot. I'm sorry.

We're gonna just stand on this side, and you're gonna put your right foot up onto the pedal. We're gonna bring the arms to a W position here, and then we're gonna press the pedal and resist. Press and resist. Two more times. Press and resist, and press.

We're gonna add a rotation now, so as we press, rotate towards the leg that's on the pedal, and then unwind back to center. There's a really unique relationship that goes on when the spring lifts your leg and you're rotating the spine back to center. Two more times. Mm-hmm, keeping the pelvis perfectly towards the front. One more time.

Twist and back. Good. Take the foot off the pedals. Switch legs. Pick up the foot.

Plant it. Set up your arms, and down and up. Let me have you step a little bit back. She's a little bit close, and I could see that because her leg was bending in too far. I want her to look like she's taking a step.

Mm-hmm. Just gonna wind those shoulders a little bit for her. Now, she's gonna twist. Twist and unwind. Make that unwind part of the exercise.

Make that part of the exercise, unwind, part of the exercise. Good. Sandwich the spine. Sandwich the spine. One more time.

Sandwich the spine. Good. All right. Super. Okay, we're gonna add some tension now so we can do some fancy, up top stuff, so let's go ahead, and we're gonna do a top and maybe the second one. Was that what we're thinking here, guys?

So it's pretty heavy, because you wanna really let it help you up and down. We're gonna do things like front lunge and stuff like that, so we really want it to help us go up and down, but we don't want it to be so hard you have to (grunts) really haul yourself up there. I'd like it to be enough tension that you can be mindful of your form as you do it. So we're gonna start by picking up the right foot and placing it on the pedal, and then I wanna bring the arms by rounding your spine and bring your hands to the sides, and then make an exercise out of pressing the pedal down and lifting your spine back up. So we're kind of leaning forward.

This is the, which Michael Jackson? Smooth Criminal. This is the Smooth Criminal moment. We're leaning into it, and then we're gonna step up onto the seat. If you feel like you're going to fall, you are going to fall, so step down and stop, so make sure you're careful.

If you need handles, if you need to by a wall, this is not an exercise to mess around with, 'cause this will catapult you right up. So let's bring your hands. Interlace them behind your hand. I still want you to get the sense that you're going forward this way, so from head to my heel, I'm basically doing swan. This is a taut extension position, and all we're doing is we're gonna rise it up onto that stilt, up and down slowly.

And up and halfway down. Up, and on the last one, we're gonna come up. I want you to bring the arms to the sides. I want you to step all the way up with that leg back. I want you to bring the knee up.

I want you to twist. Yeah, we're balancing. We're gonna twist back to center. The hands are gonna come back behind the head. You're gonna find that pedal somewhere back there.

It's there. I'm sure of it. You're gonna lower yourself down. Bring your hands to the back of your seat, and go right into a low mountain climber. The body's in an egg-shaped position from head to tail, pumping the air out.

Bring the weight forward a little more, and lift this up right here. Lift the belly so there's no movement of the leg as we do, no movement of the leg and hips. Two more, and one. Bring the foot to the floor. Bring the pedal to the floor.

We're got going anywhere quite yet, though. We're gonna bring your hands to the back of the seat. We're gonna reach that leg back and lift your chest up. Then, we're gonna curl your spine and lower your heel. And up and curl. (exhales) Lower the heel that's on the pedal.

One more time. (exhaling) Bring that foot to the floor. We're back to Smooth Criminal now, and then we're gonna let the pedal come back up. Find both feet on the ground first. Take a second to feel the weight on both feet before we go to the other side.

So you're gonna put your foot on the pedal, hands on the seat. Foot on the pedal, hands on the seat. Round your spine. Press the pedal down so you can feel the abdominal connection as you press. Then, we're gonna come up into our Smooth Criminal.

Yep, step the other foot up. We're just going up the step. Hands come up behind the head, and we rise up. Rise up, and halfway down. Rise up.

Halfway down. Feel that head-to-foot connection really (clicks) taut and strong. This time, we come all the way up, all the way up. Arms open, leg comes up. Twist towards that leg.

Good. Untwist. Hands come back. Leg reaches, finds the pedal. Can you find it?

Can you find it? Good. Lower yourself down, down, down, down, but bring your hands to the back of the seat and lift the gut. Lift the organs. Hold the organs up and massage as you pump.

Four, three, two, and one. Now, press that pedal to the floor. Good. And then step the other leg and reach it back, and then curl the spine. Lower the heel.

Right, and again. Reach, lifting your chest, and let's do less rotation in the pelvis. Lower the heel. Feel all the metatarsals here. That changes it a lot, 'cause she was rolling to the outside of her foot.

Lower your heel. Good. And then step the foot to the floor, back to Smooth Criminal, and then bring it up. I'm gonna start calling it that all the time, Smooth Criminal, and bring your leg back down. I don't know.

Are we allowed to do that? Okay, so now you're gonna go ahead, and we're gonna do some coming up and down here, so we're gonna step back onto the pedal again. So I'm gonna have you put your hands at the sides of the seat, right foot, left foot, and I want you to feel the weight of the top of the head and the weight of the tip of the tail, and those drop down like heavy pendulums. The rest of it just arcs up towards the ceiling. Make your spine very, very spiny, like little porcupine quills, and each one is standing on end.

Shift your weight forward enough on your seat, heels together. Make some space in your Achilles so you don't really jam your heel up into your calf. Make sure there's a little space, a little space in your Achilles, and that you really do feel weight in the feet, not just your hands. So as we shift the weight into the hands, let the pedal float up, and then float it back down. And again, float it up.

Now, on the way down, I want her to imagine that she's arcing her tail over my arm, so it's not just a hip pike, but it's an opportunity to drape the spine downwards. One more time like this, and lower, lower, lower, lower, lower it down. Good. We're gonna turn and put that right foot flat. Bring the left leg out to the side, and bring your hands to the sides of the pedal and pull the pedal up, and bring it back down.

And again, pull the pedal up. Bring it back down. Two more times like this. Mm-hmm. And it's a nice twist.

Good. Now, bring that foot down, so the foot that was free is gonna come to the pedal. The other foot's gonna cross over that foot, and we're gonna do snake one here, so your hands are gonna come to the corner of the chair. I'm pretty sure I learned this one from Cara Reeser, so I'm gonna give her credit for this really fun one. Hands are towards the corner of the chair here, this far corner, and as we come up, the hips come towards the back, and as we go down, the hips wind away.

Up (exhales) and down. One more time. Up and down. Good. So from here, turn yourself straight around to the other side.

Lean towards the chair, leg to the side. Lift and down. Now, it's very important that we engage the springs all the way through just like we did during leg pumps. I want you to feel the work of the springs simulated in your body. One more here.

Good. Now, we're gonna switch the feet, so the one that was free comes down, and the other one crosses over. Hands come to the back corner, and you're gonna lift the hips up and towards the back, and then when they come down, they wind away. Wind up. Wind down.

Two more times. It's a great spiral. And really rotate. Don't rotate your upper body too much, though. Feel like it's the hips and spine.

Let's do one more. That way, and then this way, this way, down. Good. Have a seat. We're getting close.

Bring your feet to a frog position, but bring your hands to the back of the chair. We're gonna do table, so let's lift those hips up, and pump the pedal, so imagine. Let me talk about that for a second. I want their arms to be towards the sides. When you come up, I really wanna feel like those hips are two helium balloons, so we're not trying to squeeze the butt and curl the tail.

I want you to feel, literally, a hip extension, so the ball of the femur head, where the ball and the socket is, that slides through its socket to open up towards the ceiling. It's not the pubic bone leading. It's the hips, and keep them there as we move. Two more like this. Good, now hold it up.

Dip your right hip down. Lift it back up, and then give it a press. Dip your left hip down. Bring it up. Give it a press.

Right, again, down, up, and press. And one more. Left, up, and press. Good. Have a seat.

All right, guys. Ready to do handstand? We're gonna do handstand, okay? We're gonna do handstand, so we have to take the tension down. The tension's gonna come down to one spring, so I would say on this machine, we're gonna do one heavy spring up at the top.

It wants to be enough tension that it lifts you up, but not so much tension that it's impossible to move the machine so we're gonna start sitting down. Press the pedal down. It's light. And we're gonna stand up here. Okay, then we're gonna roll down.

You can bend your knees if you need to, and then just walk the hands out just to halfway. We're not going all the way out to a plank position. It's just halfway, and then we're gonna shift the weight into your hands just enough that the pedal lifts up. What do you think, guys? It's really light.

It's really light? You need more tension? We just switched the tension for them, so it's a little bit heavier there, and it helps them up a little bit, but if it's too heavy, then we won't be able to do any pumps with the legs. So couple more pumps or whatever we're in. (exhaling) Good.

Then, we'll bring the pedal down with control. Walk the hands back, and roll up. Okay, now I'm gonna tell you there is an easier way, so I'm gonna let you guys do the easier way now, so have a seat for a second. Let the pedal come up. If you're not quite ready to transition to bringing the pedal up and you need to work your way there, that's fine.

Then, you can start if it's best for you right now, just putting your hands on the floor and then putting your feet up. So let's do that now just to show that demonstration for those at home who are also struggling with this exercise, as you probably are. It took a long time to learn that. So hands on the floor, feet up. In this position, I wanna drive those hands into the floor.

Now, it's like elephant. Think of pulling the legs up into the belly. It's not that you're trying to push the pedal to the floor. Few more times. Give it a pull.

Great. Let the top of your head feel like another hand on the ground. Good. Last one. Now, just step the feet to the floor. Step the feet to the floor, all the way just to the regular floor.

Yep, and then roll your spine up. Let's go ahead and turn around. We're gonna finish with just hamstring stretch, so nice and tall. Let's bring the arms up to begin. Oh, you're gonna face your chair.

Bring your arms up. Roll down from the top of your head. Put your hands on your pedal and just wait here for a moment. Imagine, again, that the top of your head is also anchoring down onto that pedal, and roll down, feeling the weight of your spine forward. It should feel like you're almost gonna tip forward and fall, almost, but your muscles and your deep spine and your deep abdominal muscles are holding you up.

Let's roll up just a few inches by feeling like the tail pulls down, and then the head pulls down, and then the tail pulls down, and then the head pulls down. But all the while, we've got this lift in here. Two more times. And last one. Tail down, head down, and then we roll all the way up, rolling up through the spine.

And let's turn to the middle to finish all together. Arms come up and (exhales) we are done. Thanks, guys.

Comments

1 person likes this.
SUCH a fun flow and a great challenge. Thank you
2 people like this.
Fun Jen! Feels dancey and massagey ??
1 person likes this.
That wasn't a question. Feels great !
1 person likes this.
Great class. I liked the sequence of the lessons. I think it would be better if it were slower. Thank you
1 person likes this.
Love this class great cues lovely flow, thank you Jennifer!
You are a rockstar! Awesome instruction and choreography....a really fresh approach to pilates! THANK YOU!!!
2 people like this.
Brilliant, Jen! Loved this class—especially the swan variations. It feels great to let the spine ripple like that!
2 people like this.
Hi Jennifer, I'm relatively new to the Wunda Chair and I loved your class! I especially enjoyed all the spinal articulations.
In the middle of the class when we are supine with the legs lifted you mentioned that it was a good exercise for correcting 'popping' hips. Could you please elaborate? It felt really good (my hips sometimes 'pops') and I'm just interested in the mechanics behind it. Many thanks!
Lovely workout, a techniqual note, the audio track does not match the video
Joanne ~ I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed the class! When we checked the class, the audio and video matched. I recommend trying a lower video quality as the internet connection may have caused a streaming issue. I hope this helps!
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