Hello, this is Karen. This is Aaron and they are matching and they ride. We're going to do a chair class today and I deliberately chose two different chairs because I know there are a lot of different chairs out there, so you're going to probably have to find how your chair works for you with the work we do. So you'll find that you'll have to experiment with spring tension and set up to work with your chair and your body. So the first few times you may have to uh, change your spring.
Once we get started. My hope is that we're only going to do three different spring changes through this whole series, but it may not work out that way. So we'll see what happens. The way I like to look at how to determine what the spring tension is, is that you want to have substance but not strained. So substance, you want to feel like there's something to work against. There's something there for you, some resistance, but not so much that it feels like you're only using one part of your body.
For example, if you're doing the pumping and now you can feel as your quad and you can't feel anything else in the rest of the body, that's probably too much spring. Or if you're a very light person and you put too much spring on, you might be catapulted off of the off of the machine, which obviously that would be too much as well. So I think of the chair as kind of like a catapult and that's what is challenging is to control that motion. That's that to me is really the challenge of the chair. So let's get started. I'm going to ask you to just come around in front of your chair here. Um, and you're actually going to just face out, away from your chair. Very good.
Good. And what we're gonna do first is just a little warm up, just kind of like a single leg stretch. Someone having, just pull your right knee up and just pull it up and just see how that feels. Place the foot down and the left and down and we inhale to lift, exhale and inhale. Exhale and again, pull it in, in here. Place the foot down. Exhale and lift. Inhale. Exhale.
One more time and lift and place. And the last on the left. Inhale. And exhale. Good. Go ahead and have a seat on your chair. So what we're going to start with is a high and a low spring. And actually I'm going to change that for you right now.
And Go ahead and try that Karen. See how that is. I need to give you one Aaron as well. I wouldn't give you this and let's just see how that feels. How does that seem? Substance but not strain. Okay, very good. I'm going to ask you to start on the heels please. In a parallel position, go ahead.
And you're going to deliberately flex the feet back and you're going to inhale, depressed down and exhale and come up. Great. And finding the alignment of the body. So I'm going to ask you to just bring your shoulders back and go ahead. Inhale, exhale. So you can feel my hand with your ribs just a little bit. Do you feel that slight difference? So, and I like to put my hands here, uh, just to feel in the footwork.
What I think is important here is that you've sense the specific stability of the spine from one segment to the next. So obviously there are not these lovely ladies, they're not dropping back and forth, but, but you do want to feel that there might be one little segment that kind of gets get collapses. And so it's just that sense. And you can, you can do that yourself and take your hands back. So go ahead and try that. Just take your hands back on your spine and just monitor your own spine. But make sure when you do that, it doesn't throw your rib cage forward. Still still stay in your good alignment. Let's do three more. Inhale, exhale. Inhale. Exhale. One more.
Inhale and exhale. Place your hands back where they were on the, on the chair, and we're gonna do a little pulse. The pulse goes down, down, down and down. Right? Inhale, inhale, exhale, exhale.
What I like would like to feel is that all that moves are these creases where your femur bones meet your pelvic bones. Good. And as you're doing these presses, feel how the spring is actually assisting you to flex your hips. And because you're getting that assistance, then that requires less muscle activity of those big muscles of the body so that you can really start to sense what's happening in the background muscles, the muscles that keep your spine stable, the muscles that keep your pelvis placed, even the muscles that keep your head in line with your spine. One more of those and press down. I'm going to have you press it about halfway. We're going to do another pulse, but this time it's time. Instead of emphasizing down, down, we're going to emphasize up, up.
So here it goes. Up Up, up and up in hell. Ex. Hell good.
So you just have to kind of cheat that. Good. All right, so this is a split pedal, so she's just having to kind of straddle that little split, but that's fine. We're going to come to a parallel line of the femur bones and then you're just going to flex back and point keeping that parallel line of the femur bones, femur bones parallel to the floor. Good. Let's exhale. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. Four more of these. Inhale. Exhale.
I'm going to have you place your heels now
So just be aware of that potential. And I keep on putting my hands here. I just, and I'm not correcting, I'm just helping them feel where they are in space. So, so that, that's my real intent with, with when I keep putting my hands there. X inhale, you're going to press down. Now as you exhale, you're going to pull up crease at the hip, twist, right? Inhale back to center. Exhale, twist left. And you imagine an axis of rotation going through the crown of the head all the way down into the chair.
Inhale and exhale.
This is where it starts to get interesting. You're going to pull the paddle up, curl the pelvis, and you're going to lift up into a high frog position. Let's see what happens here. Good. Good. I'm going to have you keep your focus forward and let's press down and up, down, and up in here. Exhale in here, exhale one more, and then go ahead and have a seat before we do the next part.
Give you a little break. Find your center. Good. The next part we're going to do, they're going to break at the hip. That's a term that Ron Fletcher used a lot. It has to do with getting into a nice high extension and then coming back to neutral. Starting from the pelvis and coming up towards a segmental.
Come to coming back up and breaking at the hip just means the first thing you do is deepen those hip creases. So let's do four of those. Let's just see what happens. Go ahead. Curl up and stretch up. Good. Now I'm going to ask you to really extend back, so go ahead and let the head go back. As long as that feels okay to you. Good. Now break the hip and come back up to sitting. See if you can keep your paddle still curl up and reach, stretch into that big arch, and then break at the hip to come back to center.
Good. And I'm going to ask you to just come really come back to full center so that your, you know where that is. Let's do two more. Curl up all the way up to a big extension break at the hip and segmental lea. Reorganize yourself back up to center. Last one, curl up. Keep the carriage as still as you can.
Break at the hip and rise up. This is one where obviously if the spring was a little heavier, it would be a little easier to keep that stable. Good. Very good to bring your heels now to the paddle just so that you can ease your paddle all the way up. Good. And Go ahead and step off and we're gonna do another standing piece. So you, you're just what we're going to do, go ahead and face front and I'll face, you're just going to pull your right heel to your sit and reach your left arm up and then we'll do the other side. Stretch it up. Good.
And does that feel good after what we just did reach up and we breathe. Inhale, exhale. Keep going. Inhale, reach up. Exhale. Last one, reach up and exhale. We got to do one more on each side. Reach up and down. Good. And so these are balanced exercises. Yeah. And the, the challenge of balance is to stay upright.
And I would say that even though there was a little difficulty with that one, it was still a successful ex balance exercise because you were challenging your balance. And I guess when it would be unsuccessful if you would have fallen all the way down. So keep practicing your balance. Don't worry if you falter because if you don't, if you don't challenge it and falter, then that's when we lose it. So thank you for demonstrating that care. All right, excellent. Okay. We're going to now change the spring to, let's do, I would either say a high or a middle spring.
Just one. So probably I would say do a high, let's try a high one and just see how it is. Oh, sorry. Okay. So we're going to do a swan. You're going to lie face lying with your hands on the, on the paddle. Good. And I like to set the body up in what I call the Arrow position. You've, uh, if you've seen my other classes, you know that I talked about the Arrow position.
The thing that's important about an arrow is that it has a head. So the head placement is very important. I'm going to help Erin find her placement and I really liked the way Aaron has set herself up. So even though she's not touching bottom the, this is where her shoulders are in a good position. I would even pull you back just a little bit like we did earlier. Okay. Yeah.
And I remember pulling you back a little bit. So it's almost here in this prone position. You want to have the same alignment that you have as you were standing. Now you're going to hold your Arrow position, bend the elbows narrow, press out how are the springs? And then you're going to lift up into a swan, keeping the arms straight, emphasizing arching this mid back. Okay, and go ahead and lower down now.
Elbows Bent Arrow position, and press long and lift up. I'm going to ask you to lift up this bottom rib so you can get a little more emotion through, through the thoracic spine and back to your era. And we breathe. Inhale, bend. Exhale, extend. Lift up. Let the spring assist you to lift yourself up and lower back down.
Inhale, bend. Exhale, extend. Let the spring assist you so that you're not having to hoist yourself up. That's going to help you find that thoracic motion. Let's do one more. Inhale, bend. Exhale, extend and lift up and back to your Arrow position. Then you're just going to bend the elbows, ease the paddle up and ease yourself off the back. Great. Alright, you're going to sit with your right leg here, left leg extending out.
Exhale and make a gorgeous side bend. Good. Inhale, lift up. Stay ver all the way to vertical stay vertical switch arms. And then you're going to think of just lengthening your right waist to go over. So it's a different shape going this way than it is making your mermaid.
So go ahead, take it again. So I think of this, this position is more of a bow of the body and you come back up and the mind thinks, oh, I'm supposed to do the same exact thing on the other side. But what I suggest you do is think of just lengthening that space between pelvis and ribs. So it's just a waste link thinner. Do you feel the difference? And we go again, lift up and stretch over. Come back up to your vertical, one segment at a time. Stay in vertical. Good other way. Great.
I'm going to help you find your vertical. Go ahead and come back up to center. Switch hands, switch arms. When you're in vertical. Really you there? And then you go. So it's, it's a precise sequence. The more precisely you get that sequence, the better spinal Mo, uh, challenge you get and that's sufficient. Let's do the other side. I think there's about six.
Good and over. Great. [inaudible]
And you want to have at least a hands width of chair behind your sacrum. And I'm going to say on this and you, you're allowed to Scooch to find your place. Okay? So you don't have to totally commit to this position. Okay? With practice though, then you kind of, you know exactly where your sweet spot is, but we might have to find your sweet spot. Your hands are going to reach back to your paddle. Oh, that's a good challenge. And what I'm going to say is that the feet, the legs can be lower. They're straight, but they can be lower than the chair.
So you, yeah, so you don't necessarily, I don't want you to overwork here, just kind of feel that link. Now imagine you're just, you're just going to roll that or lean back. Bring your sacrum to the chair, that's your inhale, and then you exhale come up. The focus is going to stay right out when that, that's not a bad view. So go ahead and keep looking that way as you inhale and [inaudible] Xcel, that's it. I want to feel that this is not an arm exercise, but that's a spinal motion exercise. Now lighter spring would be more challenging and I almost feels like we could go a little lighter with both of you, but we'll just keep it as is.
But if you want to challenge yourself at home, try a lighter spring, you know as light as you can go and still be successful with coming back up. One more of these. So really I want to feel like it's this spine that goes back so it's not oppress of the arms and quarter head and come all the way up a vertical. Let's place the feet down the floor and just take a moment just round forward. Just let yourself have a little break. Good. Good.
As you round forward though, keep your sit bones on that on the chair. Good. Now go. Go ahead and feel that and then you're going to rise up to your vertical position. Very good. All right. You are going to lie on the right side now fully on your right side. Let's do bottom leg forward in front by top.
Leg in back. Good. All right, let's get you more in the center so I don't get nervous. Okay. There, there. Yeah. Good. And then take the left arm up overhead and you're going to look at your hand. Uh, look just down here and just look here. Good. That's it. And you're going to lift the arm up and protect it. Kind of do the diag and we'll keep watching the hands.
So the focus goes with the hand. Good. And lift up. We're going to inhale to go over. Inhale and X. I'm going to let go. It's all you got it. Two more. Inhale and exhale. And the last one. Inhale and exhale and flip around.
Set yourself up. The focus of the eyes follows the hands. Let's go over first and then in exhale, exhale and inhale over. Good. And exhale. So if you watch them, they both had kind of have their own pattern that they're doing. Can Natural Pattern, I'm just going to stick with that. I, I'm, I'm stick with them just finding their own way because this is a challenging exercise. Maybe if I got to see them every week, we would define it in a slightly different way, but I think this is successful in getting what it needs to get here.
Inhale and exhale. One more lift up and over and come back up. That's very beautiful to watch and come back to see that. Great. All right. Now you're gonna be have your sacrum's width, our hands with them behind your sake room, right hand is going to reach to the paddle and you're going to straighten the legs and roll back just like you just did and take your arm to the side and you're going to again focus the, the hand focused on the hand and you can lift up and let's take the hand right to the thigh just so it has some, a destination and up and over and go ahead and turn the hand. That's it.
Feel that. And lift up. It's kind of a spiral. Let's see yours and lift up. Beautiful and over and inhale and exhale again. The lighter the spring, the more challenging last one and lift up. And uh, there's AH, here we go.
Inhale, follow the hand with your eyes. Exhale. Good. And inhale, strive to keep. We're going to just keep the pelvic bones as placed as you can and level as you can on the chair. So there's that resist, uh, resistance or opposition of the opposite pelvis. So the right Corbis stays placed so you get that beautiful link through the body and lift up and place the feet on the floor and round forward. And thank you for your hard work. Very good.
And rise up to standing. We've changed the scene and set up the mats in a way that, um, I like to do this. The mats are just rolled up at the end and with the towel on top and creates a nice pillow and it comes in very handy later. So you can always tell if I've been in the studio, because you'll, you'll see this, the, this little setup set up around somewhere, but now it's, it's all of yours too. So we're going to place the heels on the paddle and the springs of the still the same as they were and place the heels in such a way that when you pull the paddle down, your feet are directly on top of the paddle and the paddles all have different shapes. So you'll have to find your, your, the top of your paddle and on your chair at home, the theater gonna flex.
And I'm going to ask you to pull ankles, knees, and thighs together. Good. So you have to straddle that. Good. So pull down, that's your inhale. Lift up. That's your exhale. And we still have the too high, just one high spring on each chair here. And that looks about right and pulling down.
Inhale and exhale and inhale and exhale. One more of these. Inhale and stay there. Exhale. So your job now is to keep your paddle down. Flex the feet back like you mean it. The knees stay glued together, you're going to keep your left heel pushing down and just extend the right leg.
So that's what we call a knee bolt. So the knees are actually in the state, bolted together, and then you bend and we do the other side. And the name of the game is don't let the paddle jump good. And let's just stay flexed. Flex and on some chairs, if you don't stay flexed, you'll, you'll hit the seat. So we'll just keep it flexed and, and please, and breathing. Inhale and exhale one more and you extend and bend and ease the paddle up.
And you're going to go into a diamond position now. So that's where the souls of the feet are together. I'm gonna move these chairs back an inch for them. Um, if you're at home, you just need a little more space with this one, just an inch. An inch makes a big difference to me. Zing, you're going to pull down on the inhale and lift up on the exhale and you pull down, inhale and exhale and pull down. Inhale and exhale. And you pull down and you exhale two more of these and then that's all we're going to do with this. Inhale and exhale. Last one, inhale and exhale and then bring your legs back to parallel and pull the knees into your chest.
So I'm going to go ahead and just move these chairs slightly out of the way for them. And you're going to place your feet on the floor. Go ahead and knees bent, feet flat. Go ahead. The arms go out to the side. So this is where we're going to go into the hemisphere pattern, which I described in a tutorial. So if you want more information, you can look at the tutorial and and see exactly what I'm asking for with this. I'm just gonna call it out here with these lovely ladies. So your pelvis and legs are going to go to the right, keeping your left shoulder placed, so you go as far as you can, keeping the left shoulder place. Now that left arm comes up, [inaudible] up and over and you're going to lie all the way over onto your side.
Keep the pelvis where it is, open the shoulder, pull back, and then bring yourself back to centers too late with you. So to the left, up and over, good all the way onto your side there. Now you open the chest and go back, feel that and then you come back to center. So it's called the hemisphere as if you had an upper and lower hemisphere. I know you're not spheres, but you're going to go to the left, but keep the right shoulder place. So you're working the lower hemisphere. Now come all the way up and over.
Now the upper hemisphere keep the pelvis where tears lift the chest, feel that. And so it's not expected that the shoulder shoulder will come all the way back to the mat. Um, Aaron has a lot of mobility, so she almost makes it because you're in a different position than when you first started. And then back to center. Do you see, so you feel this position, the shoulder is down right now. You go all the way up and over. Now the powder stays where it is, so the shoulder isn't going to make it to the mat for most of us. And then you come back to center. Very good. All right, from here we're going to take it to run side leg pattern. Now it's run Fletcher's pattern. So in deference to him, we must percussively breathe, so your legs are going to stretch up towards the ceiling. Good.
Your right leg is going to go to the side and you're going to take an inhale and an XL. So here we go. Inhale and exhale. This label come all the way to the side. This left leg comes up and then you're going to take the left to the right. Inhale and exhale. Now all the way up and over, shh.
Keep the pelvis where it is. The arm comes back, rotate the thorax and then it's the leg straight up to the ceiling and the leg. Nice breathing. Inhale and exhale to the left. Inhale and exhale the leg. Inhale and exhale the other leg all the way up and over. Inhale and ex hale pelvis stays where it is.
Open the chest. Don't let that pelvis move good. Then the leg comes up and the other leg, we're going to do one more in each side. Ready? Here we go. The right up and over. Up and Oh,
The upper body goes back.
I call these devotional contractions cause it looks like a devotional position to me. The point is that you're going to move the paddle by flexing your spine. We call that a contraction. So you take your inhale, pull the abdominal muscles in, contract the spine to press the paddle down just a few inches, and then inhale and rise up. And exhale, contract the spine. Let the head and neck follow the line of the spine. That's beautiful. And then starting from the base of the spine, you rise all the way up to vertical as the paddle comes up. For more of these exhale in contract, emphasizing this bend of the lower spine and rise back up one segment at a time and contract again. Exhale and lift to your vertical.
Two more XL contract and round and lift. And the last one you can tract and around and you lift back up and please rise. We're going to change the spring. Now. It could be anywhere from two low springs to a high and a low. Let's do two low.
And I'm just using on this machine, there's a black and a white spring. I'm just using just the black ones. So when I'm speaking about the heavier springs, and I'm saying high and low, but again you're going, you'll find your way. You're going to stand here. What is going to do a little more balance work. So standing on the left, the right ball of the foot comes to the paddle and we're, you're just going to press down, inhale and lift up, exhale, and sometimes the springs make noises and that is part of the charm of is equipment. Inhale and exhale.
What I like to think about on this one is what the standing leg is doing. So I'm more interested in the standing leg being, maintaining its vertical line. Then what's happening with with the working leg. So we're just kind of almost creating a disturbance in the body with the working leg. And the goal is to maintain your steadfast position and being be undisturbed by this movement. Good. And four more. Inhale down. Exhale, lift. Inhale down. Exhale, lift.
Inhale down. Exhale, lift one more and down and lift and switch legs. Good. Ready? Here we go. Undisturbed. Unperturbed down and lift and down and lift. Feeling that strength in your standing leg. And lift and Dow and lift far more.
We press down, lift. We press down, we lift two more down and lift the last. Great. What you're going to do now is stand on your left foot here, standing on the left and you're going to cross the right foot over onto the paddle and, and we'll work on a full, yeah. Full alignment there. Let's just for a change, we'll do this palladium position. Good. And press down and up.
Bring your foot a little closer Aaron. I think towards you. Yeah, go ahead. So this is a moderate modification of this exercise. You Co you can also stand right next to the paddle. That makes it even more challenging. If you have any kind of knee instability.
I'm going to be very careful with this one or maybe avoid it too. More
All right. I dream of Jeannie position. Alright. And press down. This might be one where you would use a gondola pole as well. So if you feel really like it's too hard to balance at first, use a Gondola pole in your left hand. If you're standing on the right, put the poll on your left hand and vice versa. But these ladies don't need a Gondola Pole.
Press down and lift and pressed and lift and inhale. Exhale, last one and x Hale. Great. Let's come forward to be kind. I'm going to give you a higher spring. So we have um, not quite kept to our three screen changes. We're going to do four.
This is the upside down. Push up. So you're going to place your hands at the back of the chair, step up on your pad. All good. Ideally you're going to keep your arms in a perpendicular lines, so, and then you pull yourself up. Let's see what happens. Okay, there we go. Pull the heels together. Deliberately feel how that pulling of the heels together activates you all the way up into the sit bones.
Good. And just strive for that perpendicular line of your arms and let the head just go and we'll do form or these and you lift up one exhale and exhale two and exhale three and exhale four and lower down. The chair springs are very heavy, so this is a very important place to be very careful and aware as you dismount and control that paddle up. Nicely done you. I'm going to ask you to come around the back now of your machine and w we're just going to reach forward.
Take the hands onto the paddle here. Good and your right leg is going to extend up. Let's do parallel just to keep it nice and clean even though it may not go as high. I think you get more out of it and that's good and you're going to flex forward, round, flex forward. Then I'm going to ask you to keep the leg where it is, but lift the back and the paddle up and make an arch.
Good and exhale round forward and then lift up. Just keep keeping this alignment of the lower body. All that's moving here is the spine. And you almost have to think of lifting that working leg up more as you come up. Exhale down. Inhale, lift, arch the upper back. One more time. Exhale down. Inhale, lift and come all the way up.
Regroup other side. And we go parallel, lifted leg and curving forward, pressing and really make me feel like it's your spine that's moving your paddle, not your arms, your arms are just providing the connection, but it's the spinal motion that's providing the movement and lip. You can see how it looks different on these two chairs. And exhale round and lift up. And we celebrate diversity and round forward.
One more time and lift up and come all the way up. Very nice. Good. So we're gonna grab your little weights now and have a seat. I feel like when we work with the chair, it's really works. The triceps really works the back of the arm a lot and it's nice to balance that out. So I'm having used these weights, you're going to just place the ball of the foot on the bar, on the paddle in a Relevate position.
She gonna lift the heels high, sitting up on your sit bones at the edge of your seat and you're going to take your, take your weights. We're going to pull the knees up. Let's pull the knees up and go ahead and make your flex as you come up. Exhale and inhale and exhale and inhale and, and really make a muscle. Even though these weights are not very, very heavy, you're going to make a muscle as you, as you come up x hair, good in hair, x, hair in Hail, two more x hair. Inhale x hair in hell. And then take your heels to the paddle. Once again, easily paddle up with control. Dismount in front.
I'm going to bring you forward there up a little higher with a body. That's the position. So it's not a, you don't want to touch the floor. Come back up a little bit because you're just going to do a little arms, little egg beater circles like meter circles,
The circles come to a stop. You're going to rise up to your vertical all the way up to vertical, to upright citizens. That will conclude our class.
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