Class #1299

Grounding Wunda Chair

50 min - Class
113 likes

Description

You will work your entire body in this detailed Wunda Chair workout with Amy Taylor Alpers. By paying attention to your foot connection, you can stay grounded in your body and connect deeper to your powerhouse. Amy also works on moving your body instead of letting the springs take over.
What You'll Need: Wunda Chair

About This Video

Nov 13, 2013
(Log In to track)

Transcript

Read Full Transcript

Hi, I'm Amy Taylor alpers and I am here with Barbara and Karen. And we're going to do a nice chair workout. It's going to feel awesome. All right. Have a seat ladies. All right, so we're gonna start with foot work. Now. You know what, before you get on there, let's change your springs cause I don't want you to start too heavy. You could do this on a medium and a low or I would say on you guys, uh, two and a two.

And then we'll see if that looks too high cause he's every chair a little different. And let's try that. And uh, two springs for sure. Medium Springs. All right, so now right away it's always a little bit tricky on the, on the different kinds of foot pedals you have, but you're gonna try to find the big toe ball, the little toe ball and the center of your heel, and then make a really strong tripod between both feet. All right? So in other words, a lot of times it's gonna feel a little more turned out. Maybe then you're slightly used to, not so much with your toes, but with putting a little more weight on that little toe. Okay?

Now hands can hold the front edge of your chair or stack in front of your chest. All right. And we go press down and up and down and up. Good. And if you feel at all, like your feet are sheering forward on the pedal, scoot them back a little bit. You want to feel like you're actually on the bottom of the metatarsal and not on your toes. So I'd even say a little bit more back. Yes.

So you feel like you can push through your foot nice and strongly. Yeah. And have a little more weight on that little toe. Yes. Right. And then as you're coming forward, come forward a little bit more on your chairs. Choose your perched run on the front edge. That's it. So the, as you push down, right, you feel that this spring takes you straight up. Good. You inhale and exhale, two more.

Inhale and exhale. Lift all 10 toes and stand powerfully into your feet. That's the way. And exhale. Asked one push through those feet and come back up. Nice job. All right, so bird on a perch. You're going to come to your arches. Nice. Curling the knuckles around and curling the heel like an opposable thumb. Heel. All right.

And we go press it down and up and down and up. Nice. Come forward with your feet just a little bit, Barbara. That's it. You got it. And then as you go, feel that that heel leads a little bit more. So when you get down for a second, stay and then curl that heel around the back edge. Yeah. So once again, you're on the sole of the foot and you're not shearing forward, which can be a little challenging on chairs. Yes. Nice job. So there's a straight down and a straight up and you feel very vertical that way. Inhale and exhale. Two more.

Inhale and exhale. Last time. Inhale and Xcel. Good job. All right. Coming to the heels now. Strong, powerful. Lifted the sole of the foot and press it down and up and down and up. Good. Nice. Starting to get into your bodies a little bit more. Have a sense maybe of pressing down slightly with the arms to help lift you and then ascends it. You use the whole body to push the spring, the whole body to push this spring. Yes, so that it's not, I sit and stabilize and articulate my legs, but it's I'm one organism and I use my entire cell to push the spring down and up last time, down and up. Beautiful, and we're going to come to a really big turnips.

You're going to come back to the balls of your feet, feet very turned out all the way from the heels and you might even come on the inner side of your in Siem and wrap that nice and open so you feel a back energy and have to sit very, very far to the front edge of your chair. Let's actually hold onto the chair here. All right, and press down and up. Good at as you do this exercise. It's not that you keep the shape to do. The exercise is that you contain, you turning out as you go down and up and maybe, especially on the up so that the chair doesn't do the movement. You do them move. But Nice job.

Good and up and last time out on it. Very nice. Come back to parallel. Right? These together. Now sometimes also if you feel like needs together a little too narrow, you can do it a parallel hip width apart. So that can be nice too. So press down, you're going to press down until your thighs parallel with the floor and then you're going to point your feet and flex your feet and you're trying to basically keep your thigh very stable. Right? And if anything, it's maybe gonna be a little down, like just push down through the whole leg. Right?

And again, how do you feel like it's your whole body and that you're not just holding parts of your body and moving other parts, but you're using the entire body down into those feet. Good. And then last time, stay pointed. Leave the pedal still lower your heels and lift your heels. That's right. And again, all 10 toes, right? The balls of all 10 toes.

You feel the energy flow from your heel down the foot and you're thinking inside your foot. You've got 33 different joints in there. Articulate every one of them. And then this last time we're going to stay with the heels up. Let's bring our hands back to stack and we'll pump you. Just go up and down a little faster now. So you go pump, Fan, pump, Fan, pump and pump.

Breathing in for a few and breathing out for a few. And then let's take your right foot out and pump the left foot and we'll go eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, switch little toes, a little bit more you guys. And Eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, both feedback on the pedal. Pick your knees all the way up as high as you possibly can, but your hands on your chair and curl back slightly. And now lift those knees up, pivot to your right and scoot away forward. And we'll do some hundred. All right, so you've got the tip of the tailbone right at the very end of the chair and then you're going to take your arms out on your legs, up or out, whichever one you want to start with. And we'll pump breathe into three, four, five and out. Two, three, four, five and then four, five and out.

Good. Now keep that rhythm start levitating a little bit more like you're truly just kind of floating, but not just your upper body. Got To float your sacrum too. So you might actually, yeah, not be able to lean forward. Very nice. Now I really would rather those legs be a little lower because I would like to say yeah, that there's not a lot of downward gravity into the heart. So you want to feel like, yeah, that the heart doesn't have weight on it.

That's it. But you can put another vertebra or two down. That's it. Pretend some legs springs from above your head and press into them is if you are trying to do flying legs springs. Yes. And then last one, biggest breath in and powerful. Exhale. And then bend your knees into your chest. Good job on roll off to standing. Okay, let's come around to the front of your chair and we'll do foot, ankle. All right, so what's nice, this little setup, you can get kind of a lot of the same stuff that you might do in mat or reformer, and you don't have to change your springs.

So that's always a little bit nice. Okay, so you're gonna put your right foot on the pedal, you're going to press down, and then you're going to put the very base of your knee cap on the front edge of your chair. Now poms, let's do palms flat. You also can have your hands on the side, but sometimes I like palms flat a little bit. And now press into your hands and pull up into your belly. All right, now bring your standing foot is pretty close to the wood on these, cause they're also, they have a long platform there. All right? So that you're not leaning too much.

You're gonna have a little bit of a curl and maybe even soften that standing knee slightly so you're not hyperextending. All right, we're gonna press point and flex. Now, that same idea, remember your tripod, big toe, little toe street, like light streaming down out of from your heel to your yes. Good job. And then take a little time on your standing foot. Find the same thing. Exactly right now you've got a little bit of a wrap to hold those hips strongly. Okay, so you've got your belly pulled in deep, got a long spine, no hyper extension. You're standing on your foot instead of your calf. And then last one and flex. All right, a nice lift your foot and switch feet.

Press down. Okay, so whole body all the time, right for us and flex. Good. Your palms are doing very similar thing. It's like you've got your poems suction to the chair and then pulled up off the chair at the same time and you have a sense that your knee that's on the chair, right, is pressed into the chair and pulled back off the chair at the same time and then your standing foot is down into the floor and you're lifted off it at the same time. So you're extremely electrified. The whole time and you're using all of you to move your one foot and flex and last time and flax. Very nice. Alright, now put that foot down and stand on both your feet for a second. Really feel that nice platform that you've created.

You could have a little bit of a Polonius v, a little bit of a turnout, and again, a little extra weight for some of you guys on your little toes, just know that you don't want to be rolling in, okay and no hyperextension so don't lock the knees. You can have a sense of lifting the knees up into your belly. All right, so we're going to do standing push down. You might have a different name, that's not a problem. We're going to take the arms up and then curl forward. Hands reach onto the pedal and then you continue down per dress down. Now we're going to come up just to the top of the spring straight arms.

Come back up to the top of the spring and rs back down again and back up and press down and stay down for a second. Bend your knees slightly and press your pelvis onto your feet really strongly. That's the way. Keep that power as you go up and down so you don't rock off of that at all. You keep connected. Very nice job.

Let your pelvis go with you just a little bit more. So in other words, flex at the hip slightly, right, and let the pelvis go with. So just depending on your spine, you don't want to overstretch anything. This time we'll come all the way up. Stay on your spring. Nice. Pull the belly up and lift your arms all the way up and open. Good. Now we're going to go down.

We'll do three sets with three pumps each and we'll keep the elbows nice and narrow on those pumps. All right, so you're going to lift those arms and curl forward and press down and into your spring. Bend the elbows and straighten the elbows. Bend and straightness. Stand powerfully on those feet again. And if you have to bend the knees a little bit to press your hips strongly onto your feet, then roll up to the top of the spring and allotted two more sets a little faster. So we'll just go down and pump, pump, pump and up. Last time we'd go down and pump. Little narrower, strong and powerful. That's the way nice and strong. Good. Come up.

Stay on your feet, stay on your spring. Roll all the way up. Big Inhale and exhale. Good job. All right. Okay, so let's do standing. Pumpings. We're going to take the right foot to the pedal. Maybe press your pedal to the floor for a second and just feel like you're sure your foot's just the way you want it both feed actually including the standing one. Again, nice footprint.

Really have a strong sense of where those feet are connected to. Things hands can be stacked, that can be on the hips and we're going to pump up and down. So push and push and push and maybe a little more turned in, a little more parallel. There you go. Good. Now again, stand on your standing leg. And if, and try not to lean onto your chair at all. So you're standing, that's the way standing on the standing foot, right? And then as you come up this time, all the way to the top pressure, standing foot down to lift your right leg up off and place it. And then other foot. All right, so you're thinking how strong, so it'll be a little more turned in. So your standing foot maybe slightly turned out like a PyLadies v and then your working leg will be parallel. Press down, make sure you have your foot the way you want it. And then we'll pump, pump, pump, pump, pump, a little higher arch. Yes.

So you have a relatively high heel, but you're not forcing the arch, so you're still working all the muscles of your foot. And then take always a little extra time and think about your standing leg is that therefor you. And then let the spring rise all the way up and then lift and step down. Nice job. Okay. And let's do upside down. Push up. All right, so stepping onto the pedal with one foot and then hands. And let's go arms on the side. You do have some hand choices as well.

Let's go arms on the side and then if you feel like maybe towards the end if you want to move your hands, you can. All right, so you've got a nice, once again, feel the full body connection so your hands are attached to the chair. Your feet are strong on your pedal. A little more what I would call prayer foot, a little bit more like less turnout of your feet and kind of more turnout of your hips. So again, you're on, you want to be on that little toe a little bit more. Yeah, so that you have a sense of the arch wrapping the knee, wrapping up into the hip. You got it. All right. A little softer. Shoulders and back. All right. [inaudible] you're going to inhale and you're going to lift your abdominals high and up. Yes, and come back down again. Now again, try bending the knees slightly and pressing the hips onto the feet. All right, so you want to have a sense that this is down, right?

Even a little more. So bend the knees just a little bit more just for the feeling of getting your hips on your feet. Okay, now you're not thinking lift my hips, lifted my feet or the pedal. You're thinking lift your abdominals and in opposition you're keeping the pedal down with your hips. Yes, it will rise. Go ahead. They're like, yeah, I'm I gonna rise. But you're thinking my hips are on the pedal. Yes. Beautiful job. And then I push my hips back onto the pedal, right? And then I lift something else. That's awesome. Ladies and I, poor ass from my shoulder, roll through my abs.

I push that spring back down. And then last time, and Nice. Good. Now let's stay down. Take your hands to the back of your chair and just give yourself a little stretch. You can do a little runny or just a heel drop. Good. Now you might have maybe upped your spring a little bit for that one. For some people it's nicer on a little more spring. So how does this spring feel for that exercise?

Challenging. I think for up and down. Let's step off and let's come around and add a one more up. So on this chair it would be a three and a two. So one on the cactus would be on the second one on the other one on the third. You could still be on a high low, but just depending on each chair, you may want to up your spring for a couple of these other exercises. All right, so now we're going to do the up and down. Okay, so you're going to put your hands on your chair and press one foot onto the pedal. Get on with both feet and find a nice, strong pretty parallel position on this one. Yes. Okay, now we're going to take our right foot up to the chair. Great.

And then stand tall. Now you have some hand choices. Again, I like it on the hips. You can do it on the shoulders, you can stack or you can reach. So that's a lot of choices. You could even put them behind your head. Each one. As they get a little higher up, it can be a little more balanced, challenging, but it does help you get some nice lift all. So you inhale, arise, Zap a new exhale, come back down. Great job. Now as you're doing it, you're trying to pull your standing flood back towards you a little bit, right? And find the underneath hip. So it's not just quads for instance. It can be really quite a quality exercise. So our task is defined, how do we use those hip extensors a little bit more?

You got it? Yes. And on the way down. Okay, good job. One more time. Up and then down. Now when we come down this time, let's take the hands to the side of the chair and we'll do climb the mountain, right? So if depending again, on proportions or your chair, et Cetera, if the hands don't reach or if you'd rather, again, you can stack. Sometimes it's also kind of Nice to put your hands on your knees. All right, so you're going to stay low on that right foot. In this case, the foot chair on the chair, and you're going to bend and pump the back leg. Okay? Now again, your task is how is this not just another quad exercise?

We're working these hip extenders who are trying to find the hip on your standing leg and you're trying to press backwards, right? And we want a little bit more curl, little bit more curl. So it's a lot like your knee stretches, knees off, and then go all the way to the floor and put your hands down and switch feet. All right, so left foot comes up. We'll do the up and down first. All right, find again that tripod, I'll always have an awareness. Where are my feet? Am I standing on the big toe, the little toe and the heel on both feet?

Even if the heels not touching anything. And then we rise up on, come back down. And again, if you have handles on the sides of your chair, that can be nice for a lot of people. If you're feeling a little unstable today or you have balance issues, you can put the chair up against a wall. You can use a pole, something like that so that you're not worried only about balance and you have time to think about other things. You could, if you could, you should be able to wiggle all 10 toes. They're helping you with balance, but they're not holding you up. Nice job. All right. Now last time we're going to come down. Take the hands either to the chair or the knee or you can keep them stacked and you do your climb the mountain. So your task is yes, that the spine is very curled, the hips are extremely active and you're working on hip extension. Yes. And not pumping so much with the knee.

Nice job. Alright, so now press down, stay there on that foot and pivot to your right. So you're just going to do a half turning and to put that foot down and we'll do up and down to the side. Now we'll find out if these springs feel, cause again, you're definitely gonna want a little more spring. Theoretically it should be fine for your up and down and then for up and down to the side. But sometimes we like a little bit more. Okay. Again, hands can be on the hips, it can be on the shoulders and they can be reaching for the ceiling. The bottom foot gets to wrap a round that pedal so that you feel that inner line all the way up through your knee and then we were arise up. Good job. Yes, I come back down. Good.

Now a lot of times in the up and down, but especially in the up and down to the side, you're going to have a tendency to maybe let this leg that's on the pedal hang a little bit, so let the pedal kind of come up under you and drop that. Yes, the hip of the bending, the more than you think, so you really feel like it's the hip of the bending knee that's getting a lot of work. Beautiful. Nice job. This time we're going all the way to the floor. Stay for a moment. We're going to go into crossover pumping, so you're going to take your top leg that's on the chair and your cross it behind you and put it on the floor. On the other side of your pedal, so it'll be on the outside of your pedal. You got it all right. Now you've been working those hip extenders, so you're a mason strong back here in the deep rotators. Again, hands on your hips or stacked.

And then we're going to lift and press and lift and press. Yeah. And each chair, again, the, the, the angle at which it goes up and down varies. So you have to make sure it clears your leg, but you do like it to be nice and crossed over so that bottom leg is under you. And then last time bring it all the way up and then step off. Good job. Nice. Okay. All right, let's face to the front again and we will do just basically we finished our crossover part. I mean we, we finished our climb down the mountain and then we went up to the side. Right.

Okay. So press down on your black pedal nice and both hands onto your chair and then we're gonna put your right leg up on the chair and pivot to your left a little bit. Is that the correct tip? Okay, good, great. Just make sure you're doing the other hip. All right, so hands can be on your hips are stacked, all right. And you rise up so that bottom foot is cupping. So even though it's parallel and it's a little cup, you're still working these turnout muscles like crazy. Nice job, right?

But you're also working, I think you can see beautifully here in Barbara that she is keeping this hip up and not letting it drag. So you want enough spring tension under that foot that it helps to actually boost your hip up and you nice job so that you can be working this one more. And these ladies both have excellent turnouts, so you're maybe struggling with that a little bit more at home. That's not unusual. All right, so now we'll go all the way down and then we'll take our top leg and cross it over behind and do our crossover pumping. Yeah, and we'd go pump and pump. Good. Now you can start on this one and work just kind of the lowest range for a little while if you feel a little unstable. But again, we're trying to find, Ramana would say this is for your pokies, for your Saddleback's.

Apparently that's the word they would use in Peru. That's the way. So you really want to feel that you're not pushing with your quant only, but that you're using that outer head and then that's enough. Let's bring the pedal up and lift up off of it and place it down. Good job. Okay, great. So now we're going to go to the floor. So we take a little pause and we're going to get some mats. Okay, so now we're down on the floor. We're going to start with spine stretch.

So we have the chairs on a two. If you have this cactus set up or low pretty low, you don't need a ton of spring for this. Just enough to get feedback. All right. And then again, depending on your proportions in your chairs proportions, you're going to come in pretty close. Your legs have to be able to straddle the wood or whatever the base of your chair is and you're going to have your hands in a bit of a diamond shape like this. Okay. And make sure that your palm and not just your fingertips are on the pedal.

Now you're going to press down the movement seems simple, but because it seems simple, you can guarantee that it's not. So you're pressing down. Think about the first half of the press is, is decompressing your spine and then the rest of the press takes your spine up and over your hands and come back up. All right, so now I want you to do a couple where you don't even take your head down yet. So kind of keep your gaze right on the front of your chair and just press and decompress your spine. So just like the spring your spine opens and then as the spine or the hands continued down, the spine continues up and over, but you don't look down yet, right? So practice not looking down yet and come back up. Exactly right.

Cause we like to do the head. We're really good at that. All right, so instead we're thinking my spine opens with the spring and then it continues. Kinda like push through. It goes up and over and come back up. Good. Now let's, let's do something here because I would like for you guys to get a little more range out of this. Let's take the pole out of your split pedal. Now that could be interesting because now you're going to see if you tend to push more with one hand or the other. I don't.

So we're just going to take this guy out, right? Because I want you to be able to, oh I see. Then you have to use a spring. So let's go on to for both of them, you got it. So are one, it could be out. The low spring is a good choice. Crash. Okay, so, so you have your position in this I think.

I think the best use of the split pedal is when you're doing two arms or two hands and you discover, Oh I use more one hand than the other. Right. So that's a great choice. But mostly I'm doing it. If you don't have a split pedal, it won't matter. I'm mostly doing it so that they can clear their legs and go almost to the wood, if not all the way. All right. Cause I want them to get a little more spring out of it.

So you're going to press down and you've got to lift your spine up and you're going to let your, now it's really heavy and okay, go for that. Use the white ones if you have that, if you don't have a split split pedal a won't matter at all. If you have a split pedal, you have some choices to make. There we go. Okay, great job. Alright, so here we are. So we're going to press down and you let your spine decompress and then you lift up and over that pedal. And then as you come back up, you kind of want to let that pedal here. I'll show it over here. You kind of want that pedal to lift you back up like an elevator. Just bring you back up. All right, so you press down as you press down, this goes up and then it continues up and over, but it's getting longer. Exactly.

And then you rise back up. Nice. Now Flex your ankles very powerfully, right? Connect back into your center. And let's do two more with breath. So you press down, you inhale, lift up and over those hands, and exhale, let this bring help. Lift you back up and a little more time. Inhale, lift up and over, get taller, get taller, get taller, and exhale, return back up. Nice. Good. Now if that spring tension was okay, let's keep that and let's bring your feet up to the front edge of the chair. So we're going to do what we would call pike on floor. Also. Again, may have different names, a little depending on leg length, et cetera.

You may find that you know the pedal gets a little bit in the way of your calves, but over time we'll figure this one out cause it's, it does, um, have very similar feeling to the last exercise. All right, so you're gonna press bend the elbows a little bit. All right, let's do a press Kinda to get started. So you're going to press down and then you're going to let that spring lift you back up and you're going to come up so high that you go all the way forward and you pull yourself up to your shins as your spring comes home. So as it comes home, home, home, home, home, and then you pull from there. Inhale, pull yourself and you lift your spine up out of your pelvis. And then you let it take you up a little further and you feel your spine getting longer, getting longer, getting longer, getting along, or LMR. Time in help, hole fill the lungs, stretch, stretch, stretch. And you don't have to necessarily sit up tall, but you will lift a little because of the air coming in and exhale.

So let's do that one more time. This time, don't sit up tall, but do fill with air. And if that lets you live, lift a little, that's fine. Just inhale, fill and then exhale, come up. That's the way. Exhale. Come way up. Come away up. Come all the way up. All the way up to those feet. All the way. Nice. Beautiful. Okay. Good job. Okay, so now again, depending on your chair, you might be on a two or a three for this exercise.

If this is a one, you might bump that up one side or both. And if you guys want to put that back in, you can, although I don't think you need to to tell you the truth. So we're going to do tricep press. So you're going to turn and face the other way and you can you guys play with your spring a little bit. Depends on your strength in your range a lot. Yep. You can take it up one, this one you can use a little more spring than you might be used to. All right, so you're going to press down, fingers face forward.

All right, now think about that last exercise we just did and how you lifted yourself up your legs so you're not so much like pressing your legs down, you're lifting your spine up in the sense should be that maybe you could even lift your legs up into say teaser. Can I take a big inhale and on the exhale, let the spring rise and it takes the whole of you with it, right? So you don't stay there and let it take your arms. You inhale as you press it down and then you exhale and you let it take all of you, especially your rib cage takes up with the spring it comes, and then inhale and exhale. And if you could, you curl the tail just a little bit.

You Pinch those deep rotators and you try to levitate those legs from underneath back into your curl, right? And you can't hybrid stander, you'll just lift your feet. So you have to try to lift those hamstrings up from your deep abdominals and your deep hip rotators. And let's do one more big inhale lungs. Huge, huge, huge. Lift those lights and exhale, let the spring all rise. Good. And then very carefully to get out of this in case your shoulders are tight, just make sure, yeah. Okay, so now let's come to kneeling and we'll do the kneeling mermaid. So you're gonna. You can have, if you have the split pedal, you probably could just go on one or the other of the sides of the pedal, and if you have a regular chair with one pedal, again, you can stay on a three medium or maybe a two if you're a little bit smaller.

Again, you can have a pretty good spring for this one, relatively speaking, very similar to what you just used for your tricep press. Okay, so you're going to come in pretty close to your chair. You have a couple of choices with your feet. You can have your legs parallel, shins down, feet are pointed, or you can be in the tripod position where the balls of the feet are together, are a part, and the heels are together. All right? Either way, when you're kneeling, you always want to feel like your kneecaps are floating up to your belly and your shins are what is down, not your knees, right? So that could feel like quite a change for some people. We're pretty used to being a little far forward on the knee. So you have a sense of being a little bit back, a little bit more over the Shin.

All right, so we have our different hands on the pedal. So the hand that's on the pedal, okay is right next to you. Fingers are pointed forward, good. And you guys might come in a little closer. All right? And then you can take your outside arm up to your ear and then you're going to press down and side bend over the chair.

Now you have the same feeling that you did in your spine stretch, right? That the spring is lifting you up and over and then you come back up. All right? So the beginning, middle movement picks the spine up and the continuing movement takes it up and over and they're equal. See if you can have a sense of the push on the spring and the side bending are equal, are causing each other. They're related. And again, how do we stay on our shins the whole time? Yup.

And not fall for it. And you might even take both. You guys could maybe inch your hand back slightly or if you need to walk your knees slightly forward so that the hand is not too far forward, it's, it's right next to you. It's not behind you, but it's pretty right next to you and you don't want to be too far away from it, although every chair does vary a little bit. All right, so now we're going to go over and we're going to do three pumps in a little bit faster. So we're going to go over and then bend, straighten, bend, straighten. Then straighten, come back up and the breathing is inhaled the whole time. Two, three, four, exhale, return. And last time, biggest one yet biggie and the hail pump. Pump, pump on exhale.

Nice job and rust. Okay. And then let's pivot to the other side. So you've got [inaudible] man, we probably did three or four I think before we added our pumps. So we'll do three or four finding it takes a little time sometimes to just figure out where you're going to be. All right, so relationship to the chair, placement of your hand, and then even how far over you're going to go. Okay, so outer hand up towards the ear. You want to feel like this hand, I'll show it here. Sometimes we overdo the shoulder a little bit. Sometimes we under-do the shoulder. All right?

Feel as if from your lats all the way from your lumbar spine coming to the front of the arm, that there's a nice lift and it's actually a lift of the shoulder blade, but it's not a shrugger cramp. It's more a sense of lifting out of your spine. Okay? And then as you press down that lift out of your spine takes your lumbar spine up and over, much better, much better, and come back in. Then that gives you guys both a, a sense of connectedness. Now instead of having a bunch of parts, so you reaching that upper arm where out your lumbar spine, much better as you're pressing those shins down and you inhale as you go over and you feel that that's equalizing.

The amount you go down is the amount you go up and come back up. Beautiful. All right. Now we'll do our three sets of three pumps. You go over pump, pump, pump, exhale, return and over. Now press those shins down and fill those lungs and see if you can't levitate off the mat a little bit and come back. I last time I in Elo over, press the shins down. Lift the kneecaps, pull the belly, weigh in. Gorgeous. I'd come all the way up.

Nice job. Beautiful. All right, now let's do swan. Okay, so swan might be slightly lighter. All of the exercises we did on the floor, you could keep that on one low or one medium. Right? And because we had the split pedal for that spa spine stretch, we had to play with our springs a little bit. So you might be on a single two, a single medium for Swan. And then if you feel like that's too much, you just take it down a little bit. Okay. So you're gonna lie down on your belly.

So I like to have done already some spine stretching, a lot of the stuff we did before to get the spine extremely flexible and then some chest and shoulder. And side bending stuff so that your swan feels really doable. Okay, so we set you up a little bit for it. All right, so palms on your pedal. Now sometimes the floor is a little far away for us, for our foreheads. If you can go forehead to mat, Yay.

But you want to also not be totally hyper extending your shoulder girdles so if the head has to hover a little bit, that's fine. All right? Ideally the feet are together, the legs are together, all right? And then you feel an inch shoulder with the part. So you might come in just a little narrower with that left arm. There you go. All right.

So you feel right away that you press that Spring and that little scoops your belly up and then it starts to float the rest of you up a Bukem. And then on the way down, stay on your spring and try to pull yourself forward to your spring, right out of your pelvis. So similar thought to our pike on floor when we can, climbing up the leg by using the spring to help us elongate our spines. Right? Beautiful. And so then as you come down and sit and thinking, I'm actually coming down. You think I'm going across the mat. I'm staying to this spring. I'm staying with my spraying.

I'm going to my spring. Yes, good job. Let's do two more big. Inhale up lift, lift, lift. Use that Spring to levitate your abdominals and exhale down. Nice job. All right, last time. We're going to press up and stay for a moment and help her essa. Now see if you could pull yourself forward to your hands enough that you could lift your legs off the mat from your back and we're going to do a little swan die. So as the bar comes up, you swan di forward and then you press back up. Good.

Now keep your eyes up the whole time so you're just rocking and rocking and rocking and rocking and smooth and steady and last time and beautiful. Let the bar rise and lower your head and then have a seat back onto your feet. A little child's pose for a moment. After all that extension, great. We'll take a little extra breath and then we're going to come back to standing. So we're going to take our mats away. Okay, so we're going to finish our chair class with a couple extra up, right ones.

It's always good to finish up right if you can. So we're going to do a little side bending, a little twisting and then finish with some forward flection. Also another thing you want to try to do and upright and with for reflection. Okay. So that just brings the nervous center back to center and allows you to, or the nervous system allows you to go out into the world and not have a car accident or trip down the stairs or something. Okay? So it's about bringing that nervous system back again. Okay.

So we're going to do twist on hip. You might call it something else. We have a high a four. If that's not enough, you might do a low low one one, something like that. Okay. So let's both go on our right hip if you don't mind. Just so if I say arms, we'll have the same arms. So you're set up is you are literally balanced on the side of your hip and your right hand. In this case, it's on the pedal, the pole, you kind of have a couple of choices, PA facing more forward, right? Or maybe almost entirely forward so that you'd be this way, right? Or a slight turnout, like a little, almost like a Pilati Zvi but in the wrist. Okay.

And we're going to do an added exercise here. So we're going to take the left arm straight to the ceiling. Hold these legs up. They're going to want to hang. All right? So you not only have to hold them up your top leg, but you also got to hold that underneath waistline up. So basically that's what we're going to work on.

So you're going to rise up like somebody had your wrist and they're pulling you straight up to the ceiling. And at the same time, almost like a fish. You're trying to lift that underneath leg up. All right? So we're making this exercise happen in the waistline, in the center, and not only in the outer hip. Okay? So you're getting some side bending. You're trying to keep this top hip stable and then bend this side, the underneath side up. All right, now let's take that right left hand behind your head and get a little more side bending now.

So you're actually going to reach this elbow towards your feet. Come up a little higher, a little higher, and then stretch it out long again the same time these legs are staying up and you're coming to the leg. Yeah, so you've got balance and you've got side bending and you've got leg holding. So the legs never hang. All right, so now we're going to take that top hand and we're going to twist toward the chair pedal and you're going to put your hands on. Now your goal here is that your hips are stacked vertically and your shoulder girdle is trying to rotate pretty much to a 90 degree angle, but you're still keeping these hips up, right so that your body is not falling off your hips, right? So you're coming up a little bit higher maybe than you feel in your upper body, and then you're going to just do straight arm press and your back.

Doesn't really go up and down your elbow, straighten and bend. Okay? And you're trying to keep those legs still trying to keep this connected. You become up just a little, that's the way and push from your center, right? You're not just rotating, you're trying to rotate, push from your center.

That's the way. And then last one and then come back up and step up. Nice. And let's go to the other side. So in other words, we don't want this to happen at all, right? This being your top side, this side needs to stay very strong, holding these legs up in your body and then that's where your rotation happens so that you don't end up with the legs and hips hanging. Okay? So let's go to the other side. May find one side's easier than the other. If you have a little scoliosis, something like that. This can be great exercise, but also challenging one. Okay, so your out to the side. We're going to just start with a little side plank.

So your right hand will be straight up and it's a smaller movement in the sense that you're not side bending too much yet. We're just coming pretty much straight up trying to work that underneath waistline. Right, and that underneath inner thigh. Nice job. So we're working on keeping that leg up so the leg stay attached to the waistline and as you lift your underneath, you lift your underneath leg. Nice, Nice. Nice. Okay. Then we're going to put the right hand behind the head and that gives you a little more freedom to do a bit more side bending.

So now we're coming up and over the legs. Yeah. And then lengthening back out again. Yeah. Nice. And we're coming up and over so we're not going to get too low. Even when you go down, you really never let the upper body get past a neutral line. Right. So it's not going to go any lower. It's, it's going to get longer. Right?

So you're up a little bit higher. Yeah. Okay. Now we're going to twist. So we're going to take that right arm to the pedal. Pelvis is trying, you're fighting for it. It's not easy. You're trying to keep this upper hip parallel or perpendicular to the floor and then rotate your spine almost 90 degrees if you can to the shoulder girdle. The keep holding these legs up in your waistline. Right? Come up a little bit higher, Karen. There you go. And hold these legs.

Hold them up. Yes, that's the way, right? So your twist is in your power. It's not in your weak range. Nice job. And then come back off and step back. Good. Good, good, good. Okay, so now to finish two last things standing. So, but come and face the backs of our chairs.

We're going do standing pushed down from behind. This can be a really nice exercise to just feel it relief and release into length for your spine. Okay, so [inaudible] take your arms up, you're gonna reach out over your chair. We've kept the same spring. If you want a little heavier spring, that's fine. If you're very, very tiny person, then you might even like it a little bit lighter. But you want to go ahead and put your weight right on that spring. And at the same time as you put your weight on the spring, you're lifting your weight off the spring.

So there's always that push pull in Palase and depending on the shape, size of your chair, you want to have those feet as close to the wood as possible and yeah, for you, just not too much of a tuck. Right? And let put your weight on that spring so it doesn't throw you, you move you, you move you, you decide everything. The chair does not have a brain and as Romana was always, always, always very clear about it also does not have an off switch. You have to do it all yourself and you really want to feel that. So again, just a little and then you could curl there a little bit more, right? And come back up.

And then let's go down one more time and we'll add three pumps. The elbows can go a little wide on this and we'll go pump, pump, pump, exhale, come back up. And just one more set like that and down pump, pump, pump and come back up. Nice job all the way up to standing. And arms down and now come on to kneeling on your chair and we'll do, it's basically the same exercise here, a little more precarious cause you're up higher and you're on bet knees now.

So good strong shin connection. Even here, a lot of times I tell people a little bird on a perch feet, right? So that you feel like my feet are alive, they're not dangling and I'm pressing my shins down. And you're coming pretty close to the front edge. You've got to have a little clearance, but you're pretty close, right? Again, you want some good springs, so we still have it on a high or a four. You could even go to a one one on this one as well.

So you take your arms up and over, maybe even a one, two if you're bigger, the more spring, the more you're willing to put your weight on the spring. And we do want a little of that. Okay. So that you can go forward enough on that spring that these hips move forward in space so that when you come up, you're coming up with the spring in your belly. Right? And not just in your shoulders or in your legs. Yes. And your task is articulation of the spine.

That's always a big piece. Finding that deep center push off your spring to find this a little bit more. Push down on that Spring and find it beautiful. Good. Now when you come back up, you push off of the spraying to lift your guts, right? So you're on the spring, you're lifting your guts. That's so, so good. And we're doing one last time down, down again, a little less tech for you just because you like to do that more and then curl into your ribs more and then stay on that spraying and pull your abdominals up in opposition to your hands without sitting back. Too much. Good job.

Take your arms all the way up and well done. Lady.

Comments

3 people like this.
Ahhh! As always after doing one of Amy's classes - I feel great.
LOVED the cue to continuously keep inhaling on the pumping! I feel light and lifted. Thank you, Amy. (been trying to figure out how to teach students to inhale MORE - this works!)
1 person likes this.
Great energy again. I feel awful watching these away from the studio - I have to get on that chair immediately! I was only watching for my educational purposes and yet had a big smile after the class. Amy is simply unbelievable!
Loved this! Great cueing!
1 person likes this.
Just love it--- thank you so much--my body is humming:)
2 people like this.
Wow! I love the 'bring life to the feet' cue! Excellent cueing and feedback throughout! Thank you!
2 people like this.
I enjoyed this class, made me love the Wunda chair even more! Very clear instructions and the right pace for me. Good idea also to show the front and side view of the exercise performance in the same time, thanks PA!
1 person likes this.
Wonderful Thank You. Great cues.
1 person likes this.
The best!
Thanks everyone. I'm so glad you're liking it.
Amy
1-10 of 25

You need to be a subscriber to post a comment.

Please Log In or Create an Account to start your free trial.

Footer Pilates Anytime Logo

Move With Us

Experience Pilates. Experience life.

Let's Begin