Day 20: Wunda Chair

Welcome to class number 20 Wu. We've only have 10 more to go for our 30 session challenge. And we're going to start it with the one to chair our ultimate challenging apparatus. We're going to do a few exercises today that we're going to work together and see if we can start getting them back on our repertoire like star or maybe grasshopper after the full swing of Swan. Uh, definitely challenging exercises for myself, so we'll see how that's going to go. But before we start our winded chair, I want to start it with some standing footwork. So basically what you would do on the reformer when you first start lying down, and we're going to repeat it in a second, sitting down and doing it on the one to chair, but let's do standing foot work.

You're wanting to have your feet two to three inches apart with the toes. And of course you want your [inaudible] box and it's just really important since there you don't have a lot of bells and whistles to hold your head up or put your shoulders against or hold your feet up. And on the one that chair, it's just you in the spring and the pedal. You have to have very good awareness of where your body alignment is. So we have our box and if you want, you can hold on to a wall for balance. Absolutely. Or a Cadillac Pole. When I have nothing to hold onto, I like to make kind of a diamond on my lower back and I hold my uh, sacrum down. So I'll go ahead and give you a side angle. All right, so we're going to start raise rising up onto the ball of our feet.

We're gonna use our inner thigh, our lift, our arches, our inner thighs, our pelvic floor. And that's just going to be like scoop, lifting up our lower belly. You're going to keep your heels up. There are of course together as you bend the knees as deep and over the big toes as feels comfortable. Then you're going to really stretch the Achilles tendon tendons as you lower the heels, maybe the angles are stretching. Now you're going to keep reaching down your tailbone and again, draw the arches, inner thighs, pelvic floor and lower belly, and we're going to keep that rising up. So really good scoop. Bend the knees.

You have weight on the ball of every toe pushing the earth away. Roll almost through the bone as if it was rolling through the arch and outer foot and the heels are glued. And now use those outer thighs. Use a C, everything's lifting up the crown of the head. One more time scooping up. It's a sure way to look like you've lost five pounds immediately and bending the knees is really getting your posture correct and rolling down that foot.

And now scooping in fighting gravity with everything you've got. Let's reverse still lifting up the crown of the head, laying thin, your tailbone down as you bend your knees, keeping your heels down. If you can bend lower, great. This is all I've got with my ankles. I'm going to roll up, push with the ball of every toe, zip up my inner thighs, scoop in my belly, still reaching, and now push down my heels as if I'm going to go down on an eggshell and I really am coming down, but lightly and scooping in and up. Still lifting in my way as I bend my knees over my big toes.

Roll up onto the ball of every toe. Heels are glued and ankles are strong. As you lift up from them up, up, up, and pressing them down. One more time. Bending as I scoop. Scoop, scoop. Knees are bending as low as your heels will stay down.

Then you roll up the foot and then you push the earth away with the ball, the foot as you wrap and squeeze or just use the back of the thigh. You don't even have to wrap so much. Inner thighs, zip in everything. Lifting crown of the head. Your upper back is not falling into your lower back as you lower down your heels and you should feel like a million bucks already. And we're going to start our footwork.

So we're going to sit down one spring on top, one spring on the bottom. Sit down as close to the front edge as you can feed her in Pilati stance and I in to start my first one with my hands back here. You can have them here, here, or crossed here for the foot work. So heels bring the pedal up as much as you can. Knees are part and scooping in your shoulders should be right over your hip bones. Hip bones should be right over your sit bones and with power. Here we go. Ten one, two, three lifting higher, five, six, seven, eight, nine and 10.

We're going to switch to arches. Let's put the hands to the side. Curl the toes. Curl the heels one. So we did this, I think in class. Seven, four, five scoop seven, eight, nine, 10 and now we're going to go with the heels. Pull back your toes. Great way to warm up on the chair. How about we put one arm over the others for the heels. Squeeze those inner thighs. Draw that belly in and up. Ants.

What to the bellies in, in up in, up the crown ahead. Five back of the thighs. Six, seven, eight, nine. I think it added an extra one. Alright, let's do tendon stretch. We're going to step off the front and we're going to reach your arms up. Keep all of that posture right that you just did in standing foot work and you're going to roll off an imaginary wall trying to keep your weight forward on the ball of your foot. Taking your weight forward, even though we're not going to be using our body like that, you still want to get into position correctly.

Bring the pedal down with one foot, bring the other pedal, the foot down. Hands are on the back edge in line with your shoulders. So now I'm going to take a big breath and [inaudible] still taking my weight off of my feet, squeezing out the air out of my ribs and I'm going to hold myself here as I stretch down. And you can inhale if you like two, three, draw those inner thighs and exhale, trying to keep your shoulders over those ribs. Stretch down those heels. You're going to squeeze those inner thighs. You're going to draw that pelvic floor and lower belly and down to three and exhaling. This is like your prep for your pullups or really make sure you're doing that and it's also a shape you see throughout all your intermediate exercises.

Okay? See if you can connect the back of the ribs with the back of your thighs. They really work together to release those hip flexors, four more down to their Ri and exhaling, squeezing out the Rivera of the ribs and down to the knees are not rolling in right. We were squeezing those inner thighs. Let's do two more. Let me see my lower belly disappear, pulling up into my lower back. One more.

Hold my seat curve. One foot to the floor, releasing the pedal. As your hands come back to the front edge, the other foot comes down and you're gonna roll up the same way you roll down, keeping your weight forward, and then pushing the earth away nice and tall. I'm going to do my series of five the hundred and the series of 5 million to get rid of my paths. Here. I'm going to turn the chair just a little. All right. Lining it up and let's get started with our hundred.

So I'm gonna roll down with my tailbone close to the back edge as I can. Take a breath. Exhale, reaching for my ankles. And now start pumping. You should feel your whole box on the chair, right? It's a box on the next exhale. Extend Nice and long and lean [inaudible] and any number that standing foot work.

[inaudible] I want you to feel the back of the thighs. [inaudible] I want you to feel your deep scoop. [inaudible] squeeze those inner thighs to vigorously pumping the blood. That's 70 let's do three more. Anchor that back. One more breath.

Hmm. Draw those in. Goes in for the series of five. We've got the right and left and stretch and stretch and pulling into the box. Pulling into your chair. Let's do one more set. And both ankles in and both out. This keeps you really honest because of Matt.

You have a lot of space to hold your body. Are you using your powerhouse correctly? This teaches you to keep it correctly. Two more. One more single, straight leg and switch. Make sure your upper stomach and squeezing out that air reaches legs like you did in the last class of the leg series. One more set here, right, and the left both legs up, hands behind the head and lower and up.

Okay, three more. You can do it. One last one, bend the right knee and twist her left, square off that pelvis. Lift up to that knee, square off that pelvis. Lift and hugging and okay, that was enough of that. All right, we're going to do the push down. Next, I'm going to turn my pedal. You're going to drop down to one spring in the middle.

And I don't know if you actually need any pads for this. You might for the swan and the grasshopper. Alright. And definitely for the teasers after that. All right, so once again, actually for the push down in a push a little here, we're going to stand about a distance of your Peloton box away from the pedal. So you kind of have to I that and you can even take a little step back because it's more advanced to reach forward for the pedal a little longer. If you're really close as shouldn't be, it's not really that challenging. How?

Right? So taking a big breath, let's exhale and reach up to the ceiling and now we're going to end with the n roll off an imaginary wall. Taking real care to make sure that I'm using my body the way I should. Okay. Okay. And I'm going to put the heels of my hands on the pedal. My hips should not be behind my heels, okay? They shouldn't be back here.

They should be lifted and I'm almost on the ball of our foot. Your foot. Take a big breath and squeeze out the air with your ribs all way down. And we're going to pull up, draw up those arches, draw up those inner thighs, your public floor, and exhale down. And let's get that lower belly to really draw up up, stretch, stretch in one more. Let's stay down here in bend and upper back to one more.

Now find those hips squeeze in forward. Draw the belly in, draw the belly in, keep drawing the belly in. Keep walking back your hands. Keep the weight over the ball of your foot if you can, as you lift all the way. And now hopefully you're ready with the lower body for swan. So I'm going to turn this around carefully here and then I'm going to keep it on one spring in the middle.

And let's see if we can get our swan going. So I'm going to put one pad right on this edge. And to start off with, we're going to do kind of pumping one arm and then both. And then full swan, and then grasshopper. Let's see how that goes. It's still on one spring in the middle. I'm going to lie down, pushing the pedal down. Shoulders.

You're going to be over the hands. Remember when we light on our belly in the last class, you really pushed your pelvis down, reached your legs long. Okay, well, lot of energy that way. So that your belly who can pull in hold in there. We're gonna pump the pedal three times. Just make sure your ribs are off the front edge and you're in the right alignment.

And I'm going to open up my collarbones and pull the belly and reach those legs in the opposite direction. Crown of the head and the other one more. And I'm going to pull my belly in and I'm gonna reach my legs on my belly is what's lifting, lifting, lifting. And I'm going to come down and, and put my right hand in the middle of the pedal. I'm going to extend the left arm out and I'm going to do three more. Pulled back just a hair and I'm gonna reach those arms, legs and pumping. One, pumping two, pumping three. Let's do two more for working that right shoulder powerhouse.

Last one. And now we're going to switch. Okay. Left hands in the middle of the pedal. Right arm is straight out to the side and pumping what they had to shoulders and box stays. Square. Pushing your pelvis down. One more. Reaching those legs long. Okay. Both hands on the pedal.

So let's go back to irregular swan and then let's see if we can add the full swung swan. Where go down, our legs go up and we keep moving. Here we go. I'm going to slide forward a little bit for this one and three pumps, long legs, powerhouse. And what two elbows should go straight back for the ribs actually. And now I'm going to pull up, ah, as I go down I'm gonna lift my legs and as I come up I'm going to pull up and as I go down I'm gonna lift. And as they come up, let's try one more and up. Now let's go to bat a grasshopper. Lifting, bending, lengthen, clap. Two, three. One more. Lifting. Good train, bending, extending and clap. Two, three. All right, pedals down. Slide yourself back. Let the pedal come up.

Hands here and my feet are going to stay down and I'm going to pull my powerhouse in, side my mat with me and of course roll up with beauty and grace. Hem. Press down. Alright, so are, I could have done minimum motion thought, one second ahead there. And done teaser. That's where my pad wants to be. So we keep it on one spring in the middle. And we're going to reverse for teaser one, two and three.

So we're going to turn and let's get into rolling like a ball position. So I'm gonna draw my Bellion on really holding into my lower back lengthening. Okay. So I could like do rolling like a ball here, right? And then in this position you have a hands with distance behind you. So maybe I'll just ease forward just a little bit.

I'm gonna try to keep that feeling of not my hip flexors or my quads. This slide over just a hair get, make sure you're nice and centered. So rolling like a ball position changes into a teaser position. Okay. And we're going to leave our legs, extend the arms, bend the elbows as they pass you and put your hands on the pedal. There we go. Okay. Scooping in, let's think of rolling like a ball and we're going to roll our lower back down.

And that's what takes the pedal down and upper belly. Squeeze out the air and two, rolling like a ball. Right? And exhaling. And one more. Okay. And let's stay down in pump one and two and three and then pulling up and leaving the legs there and reaching. And now palms up. Ben Pass. We're going to go for teaser, two hands back.

We're going to lower the legs, but they reach out, okay. And now they stay there as we do. Rolling like a ball and exhaling a hint. Rolling like a ball. That's my new little thing here, making it seem easy. Last one on this one.

Bring the legs all the way up and everything's down and everything up and everything down for the last one and everything up and the arms come forward. And we're done with our teaser. Okay. Now we're going to do our fun series on the floor that I like. So we're going to start off with backward arm. Yes, I'm gonna push here still one spring in the middle. Okay. Because our hands are going to be pushing down and I put a pad right here.

Hopefully that'll be about the right alignment. We're going to be sitting down with our back to the chair. Okay. So let's see if we can do a nice Pilati sit. We did it in the class just before you have your feet. Two to three inches apart. Did all that great standing footwork, right?

So let's put one arm over the other, one foot in front of the other and lower yourself down with beauty and grace and control. Lifting your powerhouse, lifting, lifting, lifting. And then place your hands down so you can find your pad and center. Good. And now we're gonna reach back with one arm push down. So I feel a little close. So I'm going to slide away and Nope, cause I need my shoulders over my hips and a feet are really flexed. Pull back those toes.

Scoop the inner thighs. Goop the lower belly, tall back. Open those shoulders. Don't move the shoulders. We're going to bend the elbows and inhale, lift in and up. You can Xcel here. Elbows going straight up and in with the air. So you're trying to bend the elbow and use the tricep and in with the air.

One more. Bend the elbows and use a tricep and stretch. Let's turn the hand around. Fingers will point the other way now. And same thing. Shoulders right over those hips and bend those elbows and scoop the belly in and up. Bend. You're gonna push away those heels and grow taller. Bend those levels up and stretch, no movement.

And it's like you're sitting against a wall. And to add one more and inhale. All right, turn one hand if you need to or you could keep it the way. Turn a little bit to release. Very good. And we're going to cross our legs and go ahead and let's stand up and we're gonna turn around. Let's do mermaid kneeling.

So mermaid kneeling. I am going to put a pad right here on the closer, kind of closer to me. If I add drew a line down the middle and we're going to kneel down with control. Here we go. Getting kind of close, seeing where my knees are going to land on this little bed. K and you're going to reach your arms up scooping it.

And I'm going to take a little step pack and I'm going to keep my energy up so I don't go bang on my knees, right? So I'm going to scoop him, lowering with control. And then my knees softly go down. My right hand is going to go all the way to the front edge of that pedal. Now I need to get rid of any zigzags in my body, any tilted triangle. So I'm going to push my hipbones over my knees by using the hamstring and glutes. Here we go. And then I'm going to keep my hips under my shoulders as I do my pressing.

Okay, so this is really good for your side. Reach on your um, short box on the reformer scooping in and up and we're gonna see shoulders locked in position, reaching up to the ceiling, reaching over, reaching over, reaching over, and then scoop in and up to lift the peddle backhoe. And two more hips are forward scooping in and up. Lifting, lifting, lifting. And now use the pedal to lift your body, to lift your body. And one more. Squeeze your hips forward. Strong shoulder, pushing down. You can let yourself look at the pedal wrap. This arm around extends now and again, we're gonna use the belly, the pedal to lift our belly to lift it lifted, lifted, and Nice. All right, we're going to do the other side.

So I'm going to Tuck my toes and I'm going to scoop and reach up. Always energy up in a turn. Bring the pedal, just not pedal pad, just a little closer. You're going to get the back view of this. Okay, so standing a little about a foot away from the pat long lower back, scooping in all that standing foot work coming into play here. And we're going to keep our energy lifting as we lower down. So you just go lightly on your nice, and then you're going to, of course, if you have bad knees, you're either going to leave this out or get down gently. Again, get rid of any zigzag.

So we're going to use the hamstrings and glutes to really squeeze forward so that the pelvis is right over your knees and make sure you're squeezing out your air and you're gonna reach up through your fingertips. Right hand goes to the front corner of that pedal, locking the shoulder in place and scooping in, and it's going to go over, over, over using the pedal to pull your belly in and up, up, up, and again, and it's down. Notice my right shoulder is staying in joint. It's not lifting up to my shoulder and one mark, squeezing my hips forward, pushing that shoulder. On this one, I'm going to look towards the pedal, wrap my arm around my head as much as I can. Then lengthen it and use the pedal to lift my waist, to lift my waist, to live my waist. Keep lifting my waist, keep lifting my waist, keep lifting. My waist are right. Okay, so now let's do arm frog. We're going to face in and get rid of this.

We're gonna face this. This is really good for your rowing, just like that. Backward arms. Al Hahn's a good one for your rowing too. When your arms are back and then you're going to circle the arms forward. It's really good to understand that. And now we're going to do this for arm frog to understand rowing from the chest, rowing from the hips, and then you're having a press down and lift our waist.

This is great for that. All right, so we're going to keep our heels down, bend the knees wide, lift the heels when needed, getting right and scooping it. Bending deep. Stretch like the standing foot work are right. Make sure your shoulders are over your hips. Make sure you're not taking a break on your heels. That means your fanny shouldn't be sitting.

You're gonna squeeze up and lift up a little bit. You're going to scoop that belly in and use those ribs. And we're gonna use a pedal three quick pumps and hold it down, one to hold it down. How much can you pull your belly in and up to the ground of your head and release? Two more pressing to hold, pulling the belly in and up, up, up, up and release. I want you to imagine you could separate your ribs, have an inch between each rib as you do that's ready and push one to hold and you're separating those ribs in your linkedin, out the crown of your head release. Good. That's enough of that scoop in, in, and pressing down. All right, it's time to return to our pull up.

How has your pullup been looking? Where are you on the springs? On your pull up? Let's see here. I think I'm going to try to do it with two on the bottom. Let's see what happens here. So I'm going to change the middle spring that was in the Brent.

Go to to the bottom and we'll add one bottom spring. Maybe you're already onto one spring. Only. Good for you. Alright, so I'm going to try to springs on the bottom and I'm gonna do my pull up. Then I'll change them for the table. Arms Up, always starting with good form, right? Arches lifting inner thighs scoop and we're gonna reach forward. And then one foot comes, springs the pedal. Damn. Ooh, that's a nice light pedal. I'm gonna start thinking about my role.

K hands go to the back edge here. When you roll up, you don't have anything to help you, right? So this is similar shape, so I'm going to take a big breath. I'm going to exhale squeezy or out of my lungs and bring my shoulders right over my ribs. So I'm going to really need a draw my weight up into my lower back to lift this pedal instead of keeping it anywhere back on my feet. Here we go. We're going to do three and then come down. Good luck. Here we go. Drawing the pedal up and Dan and taking a breath and exhale man down. Not too bad. Yeah, one more. Oh, that feels good.

Let's do one more and hold it up there for three pumps. Lower an inch, another inch. One more lower with control. I felt really good. One foot down, the other foot comes up. All right. By the time we're at 30 we're definitely on one spring. I can feel it.

Arms lifted and pushing the earth away as you lift your waist. Let's go ahead and switch this springs to one bottom, one middle. So switch one of those springs to the middle. And we're going to do our table. So we're going to really get this working because I want you to really lift everything for the star. That's next. All right, so I'm going to sit back down. You can put a pat on the paddle if you want.

Let's see if we can do a few one legged tables here too. So our hands are going to be back here and we're going to lift our hips, making a table with our body from our knees to our shoulders. I like to think rainbow, so I get at least up to a straight line. I think table, I don't even get there. So squeeze a seat and I'm going to scoop in. And here we go. Lifting, lifting. The pedal does not go down and we're going to do 10 and it's one, two, three, four, five. Pull it up.

Seven, eight, nine, hold. Extend the right leg and it's one, two, three, four, five and switch. Let's get back into position. And one, two, three, four and five and sitting. Got some good strong hamstring cramps there. That's good stuff. We're gonna keep working on that one. Let's do the star. So you can either do it with two springs in the middle or one spring on top, one spring on bottom. I think I'm going to try two springs in the middle.

Most important thing is to get into proper placement. So we're going to take your Om. Let's get on facing it first so that we're really a nice form, nice and protecting our bodies. We're going to put one foot on the pedal and then the other foot. Now I want you to put your left hand in the middle of the chair and we're going to walk our feet. We're going to turn, the left foot is gonna stay on the bottom. Okay.

And our right fits here. So most important, we've got the shoulder alignment and the hip, and now we're going to put this hand behind your head and we're going to reach the leg wall. And just getting square is super hard. Okay, so just really square. Now I'm going to try to use my belly to try to pull my weight a little up and why. And to use your waist. Squeeze your head. I'm gonna try one more time. There we go. All right, let's go to the other side. So we're going to turn, put your right foot in the middle, holding the pedal down. I needed to come just a little more forward. Right hand. All right, so alignment, biggest issue, shoulder over the wrist, elbow up to the ceiling.

Who I have achieving near here. Even better. Squeezing that right hip. Let's do, try to get five up. Just little scoot is easing up and two and three and four. Squeeze your hips forward and five. Alright, so even if your pedals not moving or even if it's lifting just a little bit, I know you feel your muscles working and that is what the name of the game is here. Let's switch it to one spring in the middle. We're going to change now to our cooldown. So drop one screen.

You might try that with one spring on top when spring on bottom, right, the star. See if it gives you any more love. All right, so we're going to do our standing push down, front, side and back to finish up. And this is where the standing foot work really comes into play, right? So we have a lift in that arch in her thigh, pelvic floor. So even though we're going to do kind of ballet stretches, it's all about having the proper alignment. So I'm going to have some arms here. You can have your arms on your hips. Absolutely. Okay.

I'm just going to hold my arms here and I'm going to scoop my belly in and put my right foot in the middle of that pedal. You want to try not to shift your weight too much? You want to keep your weight where your shoulders are over your hips, right? And I'm going to actually have my hands here so I can feel my hip. Soften the knee a little bit.

I'm going to use all of this to pull down the pedal halfway. While guess what? I lift two, three and Dan and press down and hold at scoop your Bellion and Holt two I'm trying to lift. I'm trying to work and release. Good. If you can, you're going to lift that leg three times holding, and it's one, two, three. All right. And we're going to Relevate and turn and then lower that heel and open it up. And now you're going to make sure this knee is as bent as needed to get those hips as square as possible. And it's a little bit on the side of the foot.

And we're gonna lift in that standing leg. I don't like my foot placement there. And we're going to, I'm going to hop back a little bit and have my foot a little more in front of me so that my hips are a little more square. And here we go, pushing one, two, three and let's try that again and one get it in here. And three, keeping your box one more time. One, two, three. Now if you can lift, go for it. I'm not sure I can hear one, two, three, not bad. We're gonna Relevate turn lower and now we're going to do back.

So here it's about squaring off your hips and really pulling underneath you. All right. So now we're gonna pull that pedal towards us and release and pull that pedal towards us and release and pull and grow taller, hold and release. And then if you again can lift great or new. One, two, three. And now turn and turn. And now to get off, you always want to end in a PA say so.

They tell me and since I'm not a dancer and Dan, all right, other leg. Fantastic. Hope you're feeling really good lifted here. So we're going to scoop in and extend. Going to go forward just a little higher. You're going to put on the left leg again, keeping your box. All right.

And we're going to press down one and release and scoop in. Press down two edge release and scooping and press down and release. Let me get a little, let's do one more. Didn't like my side angle. There we go. And now three lifts and we're going to lift two.

Three. Very nice. Alright, we're going to Relevate and turn and lower the heel. And I want to take this foot back a little bit cause I'm not so open in my hips. I want to make sure those days square my foot and I'm going to bend my knee a little bit to get into proper position. All right, pretty good there. Okay, we're going to press down. I did three pumps on this side, so we're going to do that one too. Hold day down and 30 more.

What to hold. There we go. And one more time. I'm looking at my leg like it's going to listen to me and what to and hold and release. All right, and we're going to do, I'll try to do three lifts here and get letting go of the pedal and lift two, three. Okay. And now I'm going to try to Relevate and turn to the other side. My back is to the chair. Most importantly, I need my hips to come here. All right. Legs down the middle of the body. Here we go. Balance Hips.

It's hard to talk and balance. Let me tell ya and pull it towards you. Release, pull and grow. Taller. Release. Pull and lift in the inner thigh. Lift in your powerhouse. Lift in everything you got and release. And now we're going to do three lifts since I did on the other leg one and two and three and now Relevate turn Relevate turn.

Get yourself centered again, and we're going to pause, say, and we're going to come down and you are all finished with class number 20 see you next time.