Wunda Chair Sequencing

Hi everybody. I'm Benjamin. I'm here with my friend Lindsey from New York, uh, come into play with me on the chair today. Um, it, it'll be a fast paced, quick little workout. We're going to move around all the sides of the chair and hopefully find some exercise that I may be unfamiliar to you and give them some new life today. So, um, I'm gonna Start on this grads chair with just one spring in the middle, uh, for the push down. So we begin on the front side of the chair here. Lindsay, just position yourself about a foot length away from the front. Find a good stance to start from heels together, toes slightly part. And then just go ahead and lift your arm straight up. We'll start with a breath here.

Just really feeling the weight settled down into the heels, the arms, the lengthening of the ribs, organized right on top of the hips. Then we begin with a roll down from here. The Chin rolls over the chest, we connect the hands down to the pedal and then continuing that bend of the spine to move the pedal down. And then just go ahead and pause here for a second. Feel like you're drawing the chair towards you with your arms and like you moving your hips towards the chair to puff up your middle and lower back just a tiny bit more, and then come up a little bit like that, just about an inch and press right back down for three pulses, lifting up and then deepening down. Great Way to get used to mobilizing your spine here and find some center strength. All about being supported from underneath. Quite a lovely feeling.

And the third one stay. We're gonna add three pumps of the RMC are keeping that scoop and that forward. Reach of the hips for to pull and press down. One more time, Ben and stretch. And then with straight arms connecting arms to back. Roll yourself all the way back up the arms, lift up.

We'll do one more round just to get warmed up. Chin over, chest, go ahead and roll on down. Move the pedal down. And then three palaces of the spine, three and a moving pedal and hips towards one another with each one on the third one's day for pulses of the arms, two and a one with straight arms rolling all the way up. We lift the arms back up, arms come down, and then we amp up the springs. We're going to face the other direction. You can have a seat right on top. We have a top and a bottom spring on the one that share here for our footwork, so heavier springs here. We bring the heels together in the toes apart.

Scoot forward just a little bit, so that translates into the exercise that are to come, right, so facing this direction, we have a few options with your RMC. You can either genie them like Lindsey does right now or bring them to your sides or back behind you. Those are really options that depend a little bit on how you want to position your chest. Make sure your arms are part of the exercise. Just go ahead and press down and up a little bit. Think of your footwork here. Really just as a way to connect to your feet as well as I'm starting to understand how heavy the springs are because we will play with this movement direction quite a bit as well as with that spring tension.

Just a few more here and lift the pedal up. Stay, move your hands back behind you. Right to the back of the chair. We transitioned into our tabletop from here, lifting the hips forward and up, trying to keep the pedal lifted, loading the arms, extending through the spine, stretching the knees forward and out and then slowly lowering the hips back down, keeping the pedal lifted, arms returned to where you had them for footwork and then we'll go right back into pressing the pedal down and up a few times. So we'll alternate between those two ideas here, pressing the pedal down and up a few times and then on the next one, lifting up. Hands behind you. No worries. I was totally in your way there. Lift your hips up nice and high again.

The panel stays still in a perfect world and then slowly we lower back down. We'll take one more round of foot work here, just pressing down and it's almost like you are pumping some energy into your body here so that your body really connects well to the spring and then the pedal stays still. We lift the hips up, hands go back. Now we're going to add off foot work in here with the ebbs pushing up. Press the pedal down and up. The same way you just did in your footwork, but you'd try to keep sending your hip bones up towards the ceiling, right? And we see a nice full body shake here, right?

We're loading weight into the shoulders as well as driving extension into the hips. Just one more time down and up and then slowly lower the hips back down. I know a lot of work. We'll finish with one more round of footwork just to almost shake out the legs a little bit here. Going down and up on the pedal. All the while finding a nice little lift through the spine and then we keep the pedal down. We're add our next little exercise to play with here.

It's a take on tendon stretch. Just bring the arches of your feet right around the top of the Ridge on the pedal. Take the hands to the front edge of the chair, dip your nose down towards your knees and then lift your hips up. Trying to keep your thighs ever so slightly away from the front edge of the chair. Think of your push down in the very beginning. That first exercise we did, that scoop of your stomach and that round through your middle and lower back. Exactly to then try and unweight the pedal.

Maybe just an inch of the ground and don't expect more right now. And then stay for one full breath in or one full breath out and then lower the pedal back down and go again lifting up. So we're not looking for a big high lift just now rather for an organization of the spine that allows you to unweight the pedal. And after breath coming back down, just one more time. Rifting up, holding it there, pushing through the hands with our locking into the elbows. Nice adjustment. Then coming back down, you can take a seat.

Then your knees lift the pedal up, and then we add another exercise in, and then we play around combining those to come to the front of the chair here. The feet are still in the same position. The pedal is still lifted. This is called the arm frog. I'm going to take the hips slightly off the front edge of the chair loading weight into the arms here. Keep the heels lifted towards the seats of the pedal, stays closest to your hips, and then bend the elbows to lower the whole body down as far as the spring support you to press back up. So it's like a good old tricep dip, but you have to keep your hips open as well as your legs. Really strong throughout the entire range.

We'll just take a couple more here to get used to that. Remember we'll choreograph them into a nice little sequence and just a second. One more time. Take it down the lift yourself back up. Have a seat on top of the chair. Ooh, Ooh. And then we're going to start combining those to our tendon.

Stretch and the arm frogs. All right, so begin with your leg straightening down. Press down into your hands, nose to knees, hips, lift up, try to dry your stomach in two left the paddle up ever so slightly. And then once the paddle is up, we're going to try and keep the pedal lifted and transitioned into our arm frog. So bend the knees, keep your hips away from the front edge of the chair. Open the chest, then take one deep down, lift back up.

Keep the pedal lifted as you lift your hips up, straightening the legs if you can. Yes, and then from here, lower the pedal down. Have a seat. Whoa. A lot of excitement. A lot of fun, but it's right. Oh you get to, you get to do it again. You got to do it again right now. So we'll try the same thing here. Begin with the leg, straightening down, hips lifting up those two. Nice. That happens. I know some people say you don't sweat employees plots.

I don't understand that stuff or no liars. He lift the pedal up just about an inch or two. And then again, this is all about the transition. How can you send the knees forward and out? Thinks, let me circle on the reformer a little bit. Open the chest, take a tricep dip down and lift back up. Pedal stays. Lift your hips up through the window of your arms. You got this? Yes, and then have a seed. Bend your knees up. Wow, that was awesome. While you get to do one more without, all right, just to make sure we got this right, it's called controller g after. All right, so straighten the legs, knows two knees, lift the hips up, right?

So all of these exercises we've done so far come together here. The legs actively pushing down like footwork, the spine, bending, like push up, the push down rather once the pedal is lifted again, semicircle through your body, sent the knees forward an oud, open the chest, take one dip down, stretch back up, have a seat and then be done with that. That was amazing. Nice work. I'm going to stay on the same side of the chair, but I'm going to face it again so you can step off to the side just for what's to come. I'm going to change the spring somewhere. We're going to change the two top springs. I just to have a little bit more support for a pull-ups where going up front and for um, a variation on our mountain climber, which is gonna have us face the um, trickiest direction of them all. Uh, we're going to begin with pull-ups, super familiar exercise and I want you to link that to the tendon stretch that we just did. So we're not going for full range here, but just for that first little bit of a lift, right?

So place your hands on top of the chair. Remember it's a heavily loaded pedal, so press it down carefully. Heels together, toes apart, shift your hands to the back of the chair and then just like a push down in the very beginning, press your hands actually down. Puff up your back and then lift your pedal about an inch off the ground. Ginger, stay right there. Instead of coming high, can you bend more into your lower back, your middle back? Nice, and then press the pedal back down. We'll transition into flexing the feet, arching back, lifting the chest forward and up. Just like a calendar stretch for a second and then we go and get both ends of your spine. Move at the same time. Rounding, push down into the hands, shifting forward, but then trying to keep even weighed between hands and feet, right? We tend to shift all the way forward into the hands. Try to keep that event. Beautiful adjustment. Then take that flexed third again, heels down, chest out the nice little counter stretch. We'll take one more if and only if you feel comfortable here, going higher up, keeping those same connections. Go and find your limit. Find your highest reach, keeping the bend in your spine. Consider this your highest point.

We come down halfway, three times down and pull up to dow and pull of one more down. Pull up. Hold even weight on hands and feet. Yes, exactly. Then it slowly come all the way down. Flex your feet, pull your chest forward through the arms, opening the chest. And then from here we'll transition right into our going up front. From here you can go ahead and step your right foot on top.

We're going to keep both legs somewhat turned out here, so make sure that your feet are not over-crossing the midline, that your back foot is still anchored onto the pedal. Um, so that you have a good sense of support and then take your hands behind your head so you have a sense of operating your spine, pressing you head back into your hands, lengthening your tail down, lifting your back heel somewhat up already. I always like to spend a moment here to just square off the hips. Make sure they're side by side, both from the side as well as top two down so they're not having one hip sink down. And then I like to pull my top leg back over the chair to then lift myself up into my first balance. Yeah, this is the first time. Exactly. Good morning balance. Slowly coming back down. Right.

I'm very good at catching my students. So trust that, come back down and we'll try a couple more, right? Um, your first balance is always very insightful and that's also part of this, right? There's not about perfecting it right away, but giving yourself a few repetitions to figure out how do you organize yourself. You're already got yourself there. We'll take one more here, lifting up then take it all the way down. We'll change to the other side, right foot comes down, left foot steps on top. Same idea here. I'd put my foot as far back on the chairs possible so that I have a good um, amount of support underneath. Hands behind the head. Go ahead and push your head back into your hands. Let your elbows be wide, your chest open. And then again, like you're dragging your front leg back, lift yourself up and coming down. It's very easy to take all the weight into your front leg here. See if you can divide that evenly between your back foot and your front foot as well. And that usually gets us right into our center.

Take one more all the way down and then lift yourself up to the top. We're going to stay up on top. You can stop step onto your chair now. And we're going to do a mountain climber. We're not going to climb up. We're going to climb down on this mountain. Um, so that's a version we don't see a lot. I think it's quite meaningful. Um, it's also quite mean. Um, we're gonna start with the legs parallel and together. You know, I love you, right? We take the arms to a genie position, we lift the heels up to start, right? So there's definitely a balance and fear component here as well. Right?

So going up front didn't go so well. Maybe not the exercise or try next. But if you've got that, um, why not try and lift the heels up, bend your knees and lower yourself down as far as you can to then go ahead and bring one foot forward. Yeah, yeah. You can hold on to your teacher as well, just to get used to the position. You got it. Good. And then send your knees straight forward from here so that you have a sense of center and hugging your midline, right? And then lift yourself up out of your waist. You got it. Try to sink out of your heel here so you lift yourself up a little bit, in fact, and then you press the pedal down and up. All right, so we're not looking for a big range of motion here as much as keeping that standing leg super solid, right? You're holding onto me for dear life.

You're aren't you? Oh, there we go. And then step your foot back on top and come back to standing. I know. Deep squatting action in the body. Squatting is a birthright. Something to work right. If that's uncomfortable. So let's try the other side. Alright, I'm right here.

Lower yourself down other foot on top. Perfect. Good. Bring your ribs over the hips and your shoulders over the hips and then send your arm straight out in front of you. See if you can, yeah, I'm still here, but I'm not holding onto you anymore. And then find your balance and press the pedal down and lift back up. Nice. And then the only assignment here that's really important to not hold your breath while you do it down and down and up. One more time, down and up.

And then step back on top. Come all the way up to standing and then jump into, no, I'm kidding. And then since we're on the back of the chair, I'm going to stay right here. A little furniture change. We're going to drop down to one middle spring and we're going into our chest lift. We now go into some more, um, some extension of the body here, some extension of the spine, um, with bottom loaded support, which is a super nice way to explore your back pen.

So position yourself right on top of the chair facing out over the pedal. Your hips should be somewhere in the middle of the chair just so that your thighs still have a little bit of support from the chair. You don't want your legs to weigh you down in the back and you definitely don't want to hold them up from your back. Make sure that your hips can press into the chair and then dry your chest forward and out and let the pedal assist you in your lift up. Nice. Take a moment here to lift the abdominal wall forward and arb.

This reminders about breaststroke on the reformer or a swan. Dive on the mat of course, and then press the pedal down from there. Always keeping the pedal a tiny little bit away from the ground and then again lead with the eyes. Lift your chest forward and up. I'll just trashing a little back here a little bit. Lifting forward, chest lifts and chest opens and then press back down from there. Strong connection through the inner thighs. We'll take one more lifting forward, lifting up, and it's as if we're turning our push down from the very beginning around after three pulses of the spine, we now do three puzzles of the arms.

Take your body down. Your parallel though to make that happen. Keep the chest open and pump there. Three, two, one arm stays straight. Three times the spine lifts up. We'll take just one more set here because after that we go into our swan. I have two more lifts. You're opening through the chest, sending your toes one way your heart, the other last one coming down to lower the pedal almost to the ground for three pumps.

Three down to down one stay. Let your legs go towards the ground here. Move Yourself back with the pedal up and as a counter stretch I always like to hold onto the top of the chair, maybe the front edge, that's it, and hang my body back so that you have moment of rest for like a standing child's pose and then roll yourself all the way up from there. Getting Ready for Swan dive. Now the deeper extension of the bag, definitely more of a full body movement and a bigger range of motion as well. And we're going to put a pad around the front edge of the chair here so that we have a little bit extra support and we don't slip off.

We're going to stay on the same spring setting. So bring yourself forward quite a bit. Do you want your hip creases? Almost at the edge. So pretty far forward here. Now there's different opinions about what the pedal is supposed to do here. Some times we hear that the pedal should stay off the ground.

I actually want you to fully send your arms down into it and rely on it, right? Because I want you to work on getting the whole back of your body connected and move as a piece. So think about picking your legs up behind you first and then because your legs can come up any higher, you begin to bend the elbows, the legs continue to live, but your eyes gaze down and forward. Exactly. So we have a full body back bend here and then the legs stretch back the chest. It's forward and up with an assist. She lives her chest forward and up.

And then we start again, pressing the pedal down, bend the elbows, pick the legs up, open through the chest, start to finish, and then reverse out of it lifting forward and up through the chest. That one spring gives just enough momentum to give her the uplift into that high high lift. We'll take one more. So it's like a slow motion version of our swan. Dive on the Mat and lifting forward, lifting up hold and, and bring the pedal to the ground that is pulling g and then move yourself back. We'll take that standing counter stretch again after the pedal is released and get rid of this as well. And then roll yourself all the way up. So for the next set of exercise will be on this side of the chair and I'm going to put a long box from the reformer accessories down in front.

And just so we have some things in place, our feet upon, you're going to face this direction here, sitting fairly close to the front edge of the chair because we are moving back. Thanks for adjusting that. We are on one middle spring. Just like in the last exercise here. Um, our first exercise is an actual teaser, right? So we're bringing the knees up into the chest. You're actually gonna leave the box.

Now take your rolling like a bar position to start and find a balance point on top, right. This already might take you awhile to find where your body can be here. Find your knees pulling in towards the chest, helping you round into your back. The spine should stay round in this as you unfold the arms and the legs out in front of you. Now, take a moment here to read forward through the fingers. Lift out of the ways and then indeed place your hands behind you on the pedal.

There's two hand variations you can choose here. Start with the one that naturally just happen and then from there, think of connecting your arms to your center and then move from your spine as you roll yourself down. The reason you want to be forward on the chair so that now you can really lean back without sinking into that opening and then lift yourself back up from there. Again, stretching out to the legs, deepening the stomach down. I like to think of pushing my arms back behind me so it's really my spine curling forward. That lifts me back up here. We'll take one more. Rolling back. This is the beginning of a little sequence that we're now going to put together that will take us around the chair on your next one.

Lift your arms out in front of you. Take another breath to lift yourself out of your ways. Beautiful. And then bend your knees, place your feet on the box. We're going into our twist and reach. Take your arms up by your ears, right? So think about the work you do on your short box here. It's the same exercise.

It also is a precursor to our teaser twist, which will be in our near future. You've sits, bones are lengthening down into the box. You lift out of your waist, you take a twist to your right, you connect your right hand to the pedal and without rolling onto the right tip, you take a twist to move the pedal down. Really opening the left side of the body here, taking a reach, and then coming all the way back up. From there, translating to the other side at the top left hand goes down, twisting the chest open, and then keeping your hip steady on top of the chair. You can really lean into the pedal and feel it support as you go into that rotation to the right. One more time, twisting down, reaching out to the side. We'll give you a little assist. Really move your left rib cage on top of the ride. Yes, and then come back up. This will help you understand your teas or twist a little bit better later.

Rolling back, lengthening down. Beautiful and coming all the way up. Arms lift up and you can release them down while we here, we're going to turn now onto the right side. Both legs are out to the left. Exactly. So you are your right hip, right on top of the chair. Your hand is on the pedal for a, a version of a site. Sit up or side over. Your right hand is down, your left arm is up.

And I always like to take a moment here to find my maximum wingspan, the crown of the head, reaching one way, an arching the ribs ever so slightly and sending the legs out underneath me. And then from here, we're not looking for a sideman as much as just lifting that pedal like a millimeter off the ground and then holding it. Therefore breath breathing out, still up and then coming back down. So it doesn't look like a big spectacular movement, but there's a lot of stuff happening inside the body. I'm sure you would agree, right? And we'll do that two more times. So unweight the pedal off the ground, right? The traditional chairs have a little bit of padding underneath the pedals that already feels somewhat squishy there. We just want to unload that off the ground ever.

So slightly coming back down from here. We'll just take one more out through the head, out through both arms and out through the legs. Unweight the pedal, connecting the side of the body and then take it all the way down from here. I'll take this box out of your way. I'll transition here. You sit yourself up, you bring your right knee right around the front of the chair. You left legs, sticks out to the side, the inner edge of the foot pressing down. And we begin with the arms out to the side here, just a t shape through the arms. It's a modified, um, mermaid, a few well as sights ridge of the body. Take the right hand down to the pedal like you did before. Left arm lifts up, and then reach out through your left leg as much as you are reaching out to your left arm to find your side stretch here.

Take a full breath into your left side and then exhale. You go a little bit deeper. I'm just going to traction or part here a little bit. I'm not really pressing down. One more breath. Exhale down and coming back up. We'll take one more on the same side.

Bring your arms to t. Deep breath in and lean right back in. The support of the chair feels quite lovely here. We can also use that foot against the ground to move the left hip forward. So your hips are really stack while you stay here. Lindsey corkscrew your head ride, um, up towards the ceiling. In fact, so we lift the chest ever so slightly left to pushing forward.

Deep reach, ha ha. And then coming all the way up, that almost makes those mountain climbers worth the effort, right? Release your arms down here. Now we'll go back to put the box under your feet. We'll start all thing again, right? Take your feet on top. We'll start with our twist and reach. We'll just do two sets to remind ourselves of that twist to then do the other side. Lift the arms up, twist out of your waist. Go left first.

Take your left hand down onto the chair and twist out. Move the ribs over and see if all that side stretching already has changed the exercise for you, and then lift your arms up right hand down. We often don't do two sets of things in polarity. Sometimes it's good to revisit something after you've created more mobility in your body and just see what happens, right? One more step left hand down and over because our body's always wired for change, right? And that's what we're doing with reprogramming.

The way that our bodies move. It's great to indulge in that right in your session sometimes and coming all the way up from here, lift up. And then from here we go into our side, set up facing the other direction. So your left hip is on the chair, your left hand is down, your right arm lifts up. And again, try to stretch your body out in four directions. Out through the legs, out through the head, out through the arms, and you lift up tiny little lift, deep breath and coming down two more times and lengthen out so much. The pedal hovers off the ground.

Stay wide across the chest and take it back down. Just one more time. Lift yourself up, try to roll that right up on top of your left. Exactly. And then take it all the way down from there. Super hard. I know. And then come on up. Bend your left knee around the edge of the chair, right, like out long to the side for our side stretch. Left-Hand comes down, right arm lifts. Ah, we take big stretch over to the side.

Again, your leg that's reaching out away from the chairs, just as active as the reaching arms at your side, really in two directions, and then lift yourself back up from here. Deep breath in and we're going in hand on the pedal. Stretch your fingertips away from your heel at digging into the ground. Good, and then come all the way back up. We'll add a little twist here on the last one. Stretch up and out, right arm up and over. And again, the chest lifts ever so slightly towards the ceiling, which typically takes the hip along for the ride, so try to bring that right hip forward as you spiral your ribcage open.

Really getting into those side muscles. Obliques. QL is usually something that's tied in there with me anyway. I take a deep breath and come all the way up from there and now that'd be mobilize the size and got a little stronger there and a little more connected. We go into our teaser twist. Let's turn and face this way. First bit of a complicated exercise, but thing that you've already done.

All the ingredient parts. Are you ready? All right. Well, let's see. Only one way to find out, right, right leg is on top of the left. As we face this diagonal here, we're going to roll over the chair on a diagonal writing comes down. Think of your twist in reach. We roll onto the right hip stack, the lifted on top, so our sites that up comes really back in this exercise and then continue to twist your body down. Really pop out your back ribs into my hand. So good. And then roll your left hip back down and try to Jackknife your legs back up.

We'll take one more here, stretch up, reach your arm and your leg away from each other. As you roll onto the side, we're going to fence you up a little bit here. Reaching far out of your way is deep and your ribs into my head. Walls are nice. And then come all the way back up. Finish with a strong teaser here. Bend your knees in and then turn over to the other side.

Very nice. So a very complex movement to figure out, especially on this tiny surface, but all the exercises we've done so far that has have taken us around the chair were really helpful in getting your body to understand what's happening here. Roll onto your left hip. Send your legs straight away, out of your hips, away from your reaching arm deep and down. Roll your right ribs over. Nice and then come all the way back up. Float the legs up one more time. Stretching over, reaching your arms and your legs away from each other. Allow this hip to roll a little farther. Yeah, exactly.

Deepen your ribs into my hand. Woo. And then come all the way back up. Lift yourself to the top. [inaudible] the arms. We should have the legs raised. Nice. Nicely done. We're almost done. Actually. We'll just going to do one more thing when we moved to this side. All right. I'm going to give you full sprays. All right. Two top swings. Well, I'm not sure if that's good news for you or not. We shall find out.

We're going to finish with our pushup. I'd want to start on two springs here just to give her a lot of support. This is wildly enough as it is, right, so we just want to be able to stand on the pedal while our hands are on the ground. So taking a roll down, bring your arms up by your ears. Just think of that first exercise you did today. 50 out of the way. It's maybe seeing if there's already a little bit more space than there was like half hour ago. Yes. Okay, good. Jen, over chess, you roll yourself down.

You place your hands on the ground, similar to how you place your hands on the pedal and that push down earlier and then one foot at a time. Find the pedal. Your eyes are right there. Bend one knee. You know you might have to adjust your hand somewhat if you're too close to the chair and then send the other leg on top. All right, take your time here. Nothing else has to happen, but if you feel ready, you can walk your hands out and walk yourself into a bit of a plank here. The pedal is held up by two heavy springs. So not nothing to be scared of. Here, pull your chest through your arms, keep the heels together and then lift your hips back up.

Walk your hands back towards your feet. You see the pedal is still moving, right? Even though there's two heavy springs on it. Take one foot down in the other, soften your knees, roll yourself all the way back up. Lift your arms up by your ears. I'll secretly change the spray a little bit and we take another set. So now we're on a top and a middle spring just to see how that challenges her body. Chin over, chest rolling back down. Cause ultimately we want the body to move the pedal forward and back.

So going into the next round here, one foot on as a foot on both sits bones. Lift up away from the hands. Take a moment there. Arrive on both hands. Then decide if you want to walk yourself out into your plank, pull the chest forward through the arms. Think of your chest lift here. Lengthen through the low back. Lift your hips up. Walking in back. Take one foot down than the other. Soften your knees and roll yourself back up.

Lift your arms up by your ears. Deep breath in, and then we're going to do one more and we're going to start moving the pedal forward and out a little bit. Similar to the long stretch on the reformer. Are you game a right? Let's see how this goes. I'm going to lower the springs again. Where on a top and a bottom. Now good luck Torres balls. Lift your arms up by your ears. Take a deep breath, Chin over, chest roll on down.

Find the floor with both your hands. See the pedal behind you and then set your feet up again. The spring is now not as supportive as it was before, so really make sure that you find the pedal with both your feet. Walk your hands out, find a plank B solid through the middle here and then draw your chest through the arms. Try to move the pedal out of the chair ever so slightly and come back. Yeah, we're not looking for a big movement here. Two more times.

Forward and back. Last one. Forward and back. Lift the hips up. Walk your hands back, soften the knees. Take one, four downgrade. Roll yourself all the way back up. Lift your arms up by your ears. Deep breaths in last chance, and check in with how your body feels differently from half hour ago. Release the arms down by your sides and that is your little share workout for today. Good job, Lindsay.