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Hi everybody. I'm Carol Reeser and I'm here with Meredith Rogers who I love. And we're going to do a chair class and we're going to be working out our hips and our legs. So I'd like you to have a ball at home if you couldn't access one if or your studio, um, about this size and, um, it's going to be helping us with our alignment. So I'm just going to show you where we're gonna be putting the ball, um, at the beginning of this, uh, series, which is right behind your, uh, sticky Audi middle ankle bone. Uh, and this is going to help us control any heel swagger that we have as we are trying to get our ankles, our feet, and our legs warmed up. Okay. So, um, you'll also need a yoga block. Uh, just for one exercise. I have it behind the chair here. Um, so, uh, and we're gonna start with the seated and we're on. Uh, what are we doing here? We're doing two middle springs to start.
And you can always do whatever you want with your springs as long as it serves you. So Meredith, we're going to push that pedal down and I'm going to ha help Meredith get this ball in. And again, we're putting it right behind, uh, the ankle bone. And, um, what happens is that the heel often starts to do a little bit of a swagger and the foot likes to rotate quite a bit. So this is going to help us stabilize that parallel position. So we're gonna start seated and mirror this. Meredith's just going to take a couple breaths to get centered. Always thinking about our alignment principles of our big bony masses.
So we're gonna all just think to make sure our ribs are directly over our pelvis, our neck, directly over our ribs head, so on. And so right away her, she's trying to, uh, or you're going to reach your ankles down and try to hit the wood with that, right? And then you're just going to go ahead and lift the ankles or, uh, come onto the balls of the feet and then you're gonna go back down. And while you're doing this, you're going to keep repeating this. You're going to go up, up, up, and lower, lower, lower. Right? So you're going all the way through the range of the ankle. Plantar Dorsey flection. Yeah. And we're keeping that alignment two more.
Tendon Stretch
You're keeping the pedal down and down. Great. And up. And then she's already feeling that in her quads, I'm sure. And down. And now we're going to do a little bit of a transfer. She's going to shift your weight. She's going to come up to standing. She's going to let her shins come over her feet and she's going to sit back down. Right? So this is that practice of getting that transfer with the Shin.
Sit and Stand
Yeah, that was better. Good and down. So just a little bit of sit to stand. One more time, up and down, and then going back to three more heel raises up and down. Good. And you're going to notice that you're going to want to shift your trunk forward to try not to do that. That's just trying to be a helper there and rest.
Tendon Stretch
And I'll bring the paddle up halfway, the peddle up halfway. And I want you to do the same thing. Lower and lift. Good. Keeping the pedal where it is. So in this case, you're kind of having to use your proprioception, your awareness skills to sort of keep that spring open the same amount to more. Good. Really Nice. Good. Really getting to the quads right away. Good. And now Meredith, stay up on your, on the balls of your feet, stabilize the ankle and do some c seated pumping.So you're going to go all the way up and down. So now's the time where we keep the ankle stable, right? So we mobilize the ankle and now we're keeping the ankle stable and we're mobilizing the hips. Good. And two more. Up and down. Good. Up and down. I'm going to pull the ball out. You're going to drop your ball.
Toes Parallel
She going to take her right leg out and she can do five pumps without leg. Good. Inhaling and exhaling. Gorgeous. And of course it's a huge quad workout to hold this leg up in space. Right? I'm going to give her a little bit of help and switch. Yeah. And if your legs are shaking a little bit, that means you, you're, you're right on target. That's what we're looking for.
Single Leg Toes
So Meredith is and Meredith is really demonstrating, um, really excellent struggles. Yeah. And but down paddle up. Good. And step off. We'll go to the supine series. Okay. So now we're laying on your back and you've got your um, pedal down. We're on one middle spring. Now it might be one high, might be one low depending, right? And we're going to start with a little shoulder bridge series.
So just keep following the cues as we go. Okay. So you want the center, your foot on your pedal, you're going to come into your shoulder bridge. And again, what we want is that Dorsey increased Dorsey flection of the ankle and full hip extension. So you can put your hands on the front of your hips and press in and make sure you're really pushing up. And then you're going to roll it down.
Shoulder Bridge
And I want you to imagine that ball is there because this is where it's important. Also she keeps going up that that ankle, the heel doesn't start to to change its position. Good and roll back down. Keeping your shoulder blades wrapped around as you go up. One more time. Let your shins move forward. Imagine that ball in between your ankles and back down.
Good single leg pistons, right knee fold in and down. Good and left leg. And we're going to keep that lower leg out of it right now. Right? So that's what we call a piston in my world. And you're really having, it's really putting a demand on the opposite side to hold that pedal down, right? So you've got to really sort out what that takes. Good. One more on each side.
Single Leg Piston
Hamstring Curls
Lovely again. And then you're going to bridge with this leg and we're going to go kind of rapid. So you're going to go up and down and up and down. Up and down. So she's going to extension fluxion extension and switch piston.
Shoulder Bridge
So now we've got the back of the leg coming to the party. So we go up and down. Great. Up and down. Right up and down. Good up and crease on crease, crease uncrossed and rest both legs down. Good. Open your knees. Soles of the feet together. Take a breath. Reset. We're in turnout, right?
Single Leg Bridge w/Variation
We're going to do frog bridging. So you're gonna float your booty off the mat. You know, depending on how much gluteal mass you have, it might not come all the way off, but you want to hold that position. Really work the turnout muscles there and exhale down. Good. And again, bridging up. Good. I like your shoulder blades. Come back just a little bit more married to, you're not falling through there and down. Good.
Frog Bridge
And then low frogging and pick that pedal up. Your knees are going to stretch out. Yeah. And then it's neat. Flection and then a little bit external rotation. Right? So that's the pattern there. She's going to let her legs out and then coming in, she goes, knees, hips, right. I want you to feel that you go knees, hips. Good.
Frog
One more time and bridge it
Frog Bridge
So keep calm and keep that parallel position and try to be aware of how to keep your feet in that Dorsey fluxion. Equally. Yeah. Inhaling. Exhaling. Good. Yeah. Like usually I think we get those hills a little bit more on top of the pedal. There you go. Yes, you can hook down with your hamstrings. Good. Two more deep breaths. Inhale, you want to keep spiraling your head in?
Hundred Variation
One more deep breath. Exhale good. And then little slowly lie your head down. Pick your pedal up, reach your arms all the way up to close. Straighten legs. Sorry. I thought your pedal would straighten your legs and roll up into a teaser.
Teaser
Inhaling. Yeah, I'm right here to help you. Not Nice and roll back. Then we'll just do three teasers here. Just getting that spine warm. You're going to go up. Head up reaching for me. What's that? No, I think this is perfect. Just keep them there. Yup. One more time.Just reaching up. Good. And then bring your feet off the pedal. Good. Cross your knees, Ben, and get your legs out of the way. Good. And come up to standing. Beautiful. Great, nice. Nailed it. Okay, so we're going into a standing series. We're going to change the springs. I'm going to go to one heavy, one high, I'm sorry. In one low. Uh, again, you want to change your springs according to what suits you.
Um, we're using a grots low chair. I didn't say that earlier right now, but I'm depending on your chair. Depends on what you do. Okay. So Meredith, we're going to stand in front. You're going to push the pedal down with your right leg. Okay. So now we're going to go, I would get a little closer to the chair, you guys and yeah, you can go for this kind of traditional arm position.
Push the pedal all the way down. And what we want to start with here is like we started at the beginning, we want to get this ankle really clear about what it's doing during the standing process. So she's gonna lift her note, keep the pedal down, lift your heel, keep your pedal down, lift your heel and lower your heel and lift. Lift and lower. Lower. Yeah. And lift flips. Who is increasing her watching of her hip. She's controlling it deeply with her quad yet super hard.
Single Leg Releve
And then she's going down the next one, lower the heel and lifted and then keep it lifted. And go into your pumping, standing up and down. Good. Trying to keep the pelvis from hiking. Right. So she's going to use the troll canters as her access of rotation. Two more.
Single Leg Press
Hip Rotation in Warrior 3
You can put your hands on the side of the chair. Yeah, exactly. And everybody wants you to really square off your pelvis. So both acs, Asi es are pointing down. Great Dorsey, flex this back ankle. If you want a balance, you're welcome to. And then you're just going to do a little bit of a B duction here. Like you're dusting the wall behind you. I need to turn your pelvis. That's it, right? So you've got hamstrings holding the leg up. You've got ad abductors taking you there. Good. And pause.Bring the leg back through. Yup. Come back to standing on one leg. Really, Kara, push the pedal down. Stand up for up and down. Standing forward. Up you go. That was awesome. Take your arms up and go. Now again, we want to have a little bit of a shift where that four leg comes forward, up, gorgeous and down, but mostly now we want that back ankle. 100% stable. The back knee, amazingly straight, right? So that we're getting hip extension there. Good. Two more.
Going Up Front
Single Leg Pull Up Variation
Now you're going to try to just pick that pedal up a little bit guys. So you're going to be in a sort of a flat back. You're going to suck that like upSo you did great. Go ahead and push the pedal down with the other side. [inaudible] I think it's your left side now and again you want to be close that it's not. She's pretty got long legs but I have to stand like a little closer. Yeah. And again, our axis of rotation is here. No, no lumbar side bending. We've got our, our nice alignment principle going on. All Bony landmarks stacked on top. Press the pedal down.
Single Leg Releve
Good. And then you're going to lower and lift that heel. Right. And what we're doing here is we're searching, not only mobilizing, but we're searching for what it is to actually stiffen the ankle when we're working on moving other parts in the chain. So she's getting that going. She's going to go up and down. Good. Try not to shift your body into yeah, whoops. And good. Now keep the heel high and do standing pumping.That's why I think you should stay in closer. Mary's still hop in. You don't want to be sort of leaning. You want to sort of be on top of your standing leg. There you go. And then pumping up and down. Good. All the way and down. Good.
Single Leg Press
So now she really working to keep that ankle stable so you don't want to change the ankle. Go to more. There's that tremor in the legs. We know we're doing the right thing here and pause. Good. So now lifted all the way up and we're going to go to that standing. So here we are. We've got the Lek. Go to hip extension first. Turn your hip extensors on, then go to flection of the supporting hip. Yeah, you're in your warrior three, right? Again, you're always going to have to turn that hip down a little more than you think.
Hip Rotation in Warrior 3
Right? Dorsey? Flex the ankle. Straight knee, good. And Ab duction now Meredith is holding on, which is fine cause she's on camera and she doesn't want to fall in front of you guys, but at home you might want to let go and see if you can handle that. It's sort of an interesting thing to manage. Good. One more time. Great. You Bet. Pull up the quad in the standing leg, everybody, and then you're going to come up and we're going to look right at each other here in this moment. It's so exciting. Push that pedal down and go to up and down, standing. Take your arms back into your, I think you are here. Up you go.Good. Better that time. Nice. Center of the hip center, the knees, center of the foot. Fundamental arch. Here you go. You're going to stay with that alignment. Good and down, right? So this is a place where we can really monitor that tracking. Beautiful. And again, I said back legs, super duper straight ankle, super stiff, meaning you're not get, you're not changing the spring with your ankle, you're changing the spring with your standing leg and chances are you're using your hammer [inaudible] good on more time. Good.
Going Up Front
And then we're going to scope lower yourself down and then make a really clear transition into that warrior three position again.
Single Leg Pull Up Variation
Just pulling the pedal up a little bit and I'll keep your quad. Really, really your knee extensors really pulling up there. It's a huge tendency to want to bend the knee to get the spring up and rash. She's going to step back.
You can take that leg in and I've good. Just take your arms up and go ahead and I'm going to drop this down for you, Mary, if I can do so so quickly and you are going to come into too low springs standing, roll down. Just enjoy a little break from the legs and get go ahead and allow those hamstrings to get let out. So go all the way down everybody on pause and then see if you can even lift your sits bones up just a little bit to increase that hamstring stretch. You can do a couple arm pumps, their narrow elbows bend and straighten your elbows.
Washer Woman
Let's do one more of those. We're just taking a little break from that leg centered material. Getting a little stretch in the hamstrings. He, I let those sitz bones lift up. Good bend and straighten the arms again.
Do heels to get you up. Bringing the bony mass to the pelvis onto the legs. Rib Cage on top of the pelvis,
So you're going to go back to one high, one low or the same thing that you did for the standing up and down series and in the front frontal plane. So Meredith is going to have a seat on the corner. This has got three parts to it. You're going to have your foot on a yoga block. You're in a turned out position. Your other leg on the pedal. Yeah, exactly. So you're gonna start with your trunk is squared off this way. Exactly. You want to stay rooted in this supporting sit bone and she's going to press down and up, right?
Single Leg Second Heel
And you can see that she wants to shift good her weight. So you want to just do the leg go down and up. Down Nice and up. It's heavy. Huh? Down maybe a little heavy. So you might want to go a little lighter for this one down and up. Now she's going to twist her trunk to me and she's going to do the same pumping down and up, which is just gonna de re reorient.
Single Leg Second Heel w/Rotation
You keep the twists down in the middle. Lighten it and up, down and up. And then she's going to reach your arms over her head and do four more. Down and up. Down and up. Good. Trying to keep your trunk stable and up. One more and rest. Beautiful. Okay. So from here we're going to go over, you're going to be using this leg for crossover pumping.So you're going to come stand on this side of the chair. So just step around. You could do a little actually like Shanae turn if you want, and we're, there we go. And then you're going to crossover pump. You're going to go down and up. Good. And so you're standing put should be just about where the base of your chair is, right? And you're pushing down and up. Good. And you're trying not to lean forward into the pedal, but rather really pushed the pedal with your foot down and up. Two more.
Cross Over
Go down. That's it. And up. One more and stay down. Step up for side. Up and down. Standing here, welcome. And again, let's get those con. Let's get those boney masses in. Good alignment. Now depending on your turnout, you might be a little bit more turned in than this. Meredith has a lot of turnout, but she's going to go up and downside standing.
Going Up Side
Good. Beautiful. Now let's try and keep that back knee straight. So you're going to use your knee extensors, guys. That means all of the muscles around your knees that help keep your knees straight. Really, really significant here because that's going to get you back into those head Monez yeah, right here. That's it. One more time. Great. And down, a little reprieve from the legs. Crossed this leg over for upside down. Push up, crossed over.Yeah. And then hands right there on the corner. Good. Just drop your head down and up you go. Yeah. Beautiful. And down. Right and up. Keeping again, a sense of uh, where your pal, your pelvis is changing, right? So you want to keep that, the hips extended as long as you can. One more time. Good. And now Mary, this you're gonna switch feet right where you are.
Side Pull Up Variation
So put this foot on the pedal and then take your other leg out to the side. You're going to bring both arms to the side and the square off. So in my world here, we're going to square off. Leg is gonna reach this way. And then we're going to really work on a little ab duction.So just try to lift and lower that leg a couple times and then hold that leg up and up and down with your pedals so hard you guys reach up, up, up and down. I know. Good Meredith, hold that leg up one more time and rest. Take your time coming off. Let's go to the other side. Okay, you're on the other side. Okay. I should call this class the chair challenged. Like if you could nail this after a year's practice, then you know you get a prize very hard. You're going to go down and up. Good, good. And down and up again.
Single Leg Second Heel
You're doing your best not to shift your trunk and this is a really good one to sort of get that strength in that lateral hip down and up. One more and then she's going to twist. So now she's going to twist to me. Good. And down and up. Yeah. I'm borrowing this from my colleague Jeremy Lavender who taught it to me during a workshop a couple of weeks ago, so I know how hard it is. Stay with me here, down and up. It's okay if he doesn't get down all the way down and up. Beautiful. And then reach the arms over. Keep the twist. Yeah and keep that.
Single Leg Second Heel w/Rotation
So that's the challenge when you twist. And I'm going to help her out here down and up. Everybody needs a friend to help them with their load. Tear work out. Every once in a while there we go. Down and up, down and up. One more. She's got it. She's got it. Yeah. And rust.Good. Come on off for standing. Cross pumping on the other side. That's where you get your Shinay turned nice. There she goes. And go down. So you want this foot a little bit more this way. Like at the edge of the chair. Yeah. So you really crossed over. Yeah.
Cross Over
So it puts that lateral hip a little bit on the stretches you come across. Right. So again, a lot of throwing you around this low chair business does requires a lot of stability in that standing leg. Good. Up and down. Up. Beautiful. Good. She's back to recentered self. She brought herself back. Good. So keep the pedal down.Mademoiselle excellent. And up and down. Good. So here's the common thing. We're going to want to bend that back knee. You want to keep your knee extensors working really hard to keep a straight knee. I'm going to hold her knee cap up for her. Yeah. So she has to actually use this to get herself up.
Going Up Side
There she goes one more time. Good. She's going to do the cross over upside down. Push up Allah, Cara Reeser I think or that maybe somebody else made this up, but drop your head and there she goes. Up and down. Yeah. Great. So again, she can really feel how her foot stays stable. Right? If you're lifting your heel, you're cheating, which is also okay, but just be aware and rest. Good. We're gonna do the Ab ducted leg one where you face me, you switch feet square off your shoulders, take your leg up, out to the side. You can even look up on this one if you want.
Side Pull Up Variation
Maybe not that much. I'll put, yeah. Um, and then that's your leg to the side. And here we go. Little bit. Yeah. Nobody in the history of the world doesn't enough of this, that's for sure. Super hard. Good. And then hold it and then suck it up. So again, that supporting the super duper straight. Hey did it? Yeah. Good. Yeah. Small quivering earthquake and the lateral hip is absolutely appropriate and good. And down she goes, she steps off ginger.Gorgeous baby. Okay, let's move on. Okay. Homestretch. We got on top for a prone series. So we're new swan on top of the chair somewhere that's going to climb up. You want that pedal right under your shoulders. And you know, here's the rub. Knee has to be straight.
So we're going to use the knee extensors even though we're prone. Um, that's, that's a against gravity. So it's hard. Hips are extended, right? She's gonna go ahead into Swan, lifting the head. Beautiful. Bringing the pedal up, keeping the knees straight so hard and back down. Good. Breathing up. Good. There you are. And down. Good.
Swan
And we're going to up the ante after this next one. So she's going to go up. She's really keeping her knees straight. Awesome job and back down. Good. And then here we go. She's going to go up. Good. She's gonna bend her knees. Yeah, she's gonna really work with that full load in the back of her legs and stretch it out and go down. And again, coming up and bend. Good. This is your rocking prep for the Mat, right? So it's, it's all in there. One more time.
Swan Variation
Gorgeous and out. We're going to twist extends. So she's going to, um, come up to the right hip. She's going to scissors her legs. She's going to want to be in the center of her chair and then she's going to, I always like to think about my knees being trained and maybe like clamping onto somebody. So she kind of clamp onto me here and then she's going to go up. You want this tro cantor facing the ceiling? A good two more, right?
Side Body Twist
This is such a cool exercise. Extending and twisting at the same time. I just love this exercise. Good and good. Now I'd like to come out of this very gingerly. She's going to come up to seated on the chair and then she's gonna just do a very gentle counter rotation of her spine, uh, because it can be a place where you get a little spesticity there and rest. Good. Let's twist. Rotate on the other side. So again, she's on the major tro canter of averse supporting leg.
The other major trope Cantor's facing straight up her knees. Oh, whoa. And she, she goes up and down. Good. And the reason that's important is because that, that will show us that she's actually twisting at the spine and not changing her pelvis. And one more time.
Good and good. Beautiful cat on the low chair. We're on one. Ha a high spring at this point. Um, if you want to change that, you can, um, we're going to go arms up. We're going to roll down. Finally, something familiar, something not all about your legs completely. Imagine your feet are standing on a wall behind you. As she rolls down, she goes into extension. I love that. And Roll Up. Some of you've learned Kat universal all the way up.
Cat
And what we're really going to think about is that hip extension. Some of you learn cat not extending the spine, but I really liked going through both. So you go down in flection and then you get to move through that extension like you do in the push through bar all the way. Right. And then this is that theme sits bones to the back of the knee. She standing on my legs.You see posterior like really having to work to extend her one more time. Go down. Yep. She gets Nice Lumbar flection all the way. Good and up. Yeah. And this is just so helpful. So if you have a friend who you can stand on, it's awesome and rest good.
She's going to back up a little bit. Everybody back up a little bit. Just go to a quarter pet on the top of your chair. Yeah, exactly. And then we're going to go in. You're going to just sneak that left leg out without changing your pelvis. Yeah. And you're going to exactly. And then you're going to sneak that right arm out.
Quadruped Opposite Arm and Leg Flexion and Extension
We're just going to have a little moment of bird dog. They're super hard. Yeah. And then you can do a little ab duction again with this hip. Yeah. So we're just checking back and we keep coming back to the same moments and, and getting better at them. And rest other side. This is hard in a really small base chair. So if you can't fit on this, just leave this out or do it on the floor and then you're going to go out and, and good turn this Asi us down into Aha. There you go. Good. So a lot of trunk support there to really great Meredith and rest good.She's gonna hop on off. Good. We're going to come back to seated on the chair like we started. So you're gonna go all the way to the front of your mat and have a seat. And I'm going to go back to a high, um, a high, low spring for Meredith. Um, we're just gonna finish up with a little bit of the foot work and um, and then just move on from there. So go ahead and push your pedal down, right? We just give the legs one more chance to pump up. We're going to go to the, the position now, right?
So we have a gentle V, we are thinking about the center of the hip, the center of the knee and the center of the foot. And she's going to go up and down. Good. And at this point she's like completely warmed up and her legs are tired, but happy. Two more. Good. And then from here we're going to bring your legs together and put the arches on. Yup. And we're going to just go ahead upside down into tendon stretch. Yeah.
Pilates Stance
So now we've got to really work on that straight knee, right? So again, we've got to use our knee extensors, pull the kneecaps up, and she's going to try to pick up that pedal. Yeah, isn't she clever? Now a lot of you will bend your knees to do that, right? So just kind of take yourself to the test. Can you actually keep your knees straight? Yeah. Yeah. And also what's happening is she's pushing her pedal down with the balls of your feet. So if you can move yeah. To there, I'm going to help.
Tendon Stretch
Yeah, there's a, yeah, get on that. There's a little spider under there. We want to save him. Come here baby. Okay. And now and up and down. Good. Pull your knee calves up there. Yes, yes, yes. And have a seat. Good. Take your arms back around now.Full hip extension for high frog to finish. She's like, go up. You Go. Good scapular round supporting. And she goes down and up. Good. Right down and up. Good. Big Breaths. Good for three. You're doing great.
Table
Two and one and have a seat. Good. Just come off your chair. Whoo. Roll down.
Roll Down
The Teacher's Corner: Lower Body Strengthening For You and Your Clients
Mention
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Cara Reeser (Teacher) |
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Elizabeth D |
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Billie M |
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Brianna M |
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Caroline B |
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Vanisha T |
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Elle C |
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Mel W |
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sandyjgrant |
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Nadine T |
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Denee D |
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Erin Elizabeth |
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Dana Gereghty Romanosky |
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Karin C |
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Pandora Pilates |
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Theresa F |
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Move U |
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Svitlana D |
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Theresa L |
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Patti S |
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Raymond Harris |
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Kathleen B |
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Michele M |
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Meredith Rogers |
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Stacey U |
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Nicole P |
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Madeline Black |
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Jackie |
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KIM M |
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Lori |
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Rosemary |
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Sharon O |
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Rachel P |
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