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Hi, I'm Blossom Leilani Crawford. Um, welcome to this beautiful set. I provided all of myself. So today we're gonna do just a sort of an easy chair. I don't really want to say that it's a beginner chair. Kathy Grant never really categorizes the exercises as beginning, intermediate or advanced as was done by Romana with my training that I did with her.
So the exercises that I'm trying to do is really for those of you at home who are, want to try a chair, maybe have a chair at home that's collecting some dust, but you're not sure what to do or maybe you just want to do things that are really safe. So that's the person that I'm thinking of and hopefully that's you and that you'll try some of this. And I think that there'll be a nice and easy, uh, safe and um, hopefully some fun and definitely great for your body. So let's get going. So you're going to have the chair set up on one spring and you can decide how heavy or light you want the spring. So right now I'm going to put it on pretty much the lightest setting.
Remember the lower down the spring goes, the lighter the pedal is, because we're not going to be doing too much with the weight of the pedal. So here we go. You're gonna get yourself into a cat position. So hands with a pedal are gonna press the pedal down with your hands underneath your shoulders. Try to find your knees right underneath your hips and maybe just find a neutral position, which is easier said than done. And I don't have a mirror with me and hopefully I'm in a good spot. Um, and usually if you're by yourself, this is sort of the usual thing that seems to happen where the head drops, the ribs drop. So can you lift your head up, but not by lifting your eyes up, but instead think of lifting the back of your neck up.
I like to jokingly call it angry turtle, or I could call it triple chin, but that's not really the look we're going for. But that is sort of what's happening. And then as you're lifting the back of the head, can you lift the rib cage too? So I actively push the pedal away. So in this position now I'm just going to shift forward and shift back.
So these are all sort of takes off of Kathy Grant's cat exercises, but just to sort of hold that position and feel what that feels like or just shifting forward and back. Not much to see. So as you shift forward, you lengthen out of the tailbone and as you shift back, you lengthen out of the top of the head, adding on, tuck all 10 toes underneath you. Can you keep the beautiful lift of the back of your head and ribs? Maybe just lift the knees up, push the floor away, hold. Maybe you hear my voice quivering and you take it down. You inhale again. And as you exhale, try not to Tuck in the hips as I just did.
Quadruped Floating Knees
Just lift those knees up and hold and if you're feeling great, then you can also add that shift forward and shift back. Inhale. As you shift forward, lengthen out of the tailbone and lengthen out of the top of the head. As you shift back, lower the knees down. Drop your head and untuck the toes. Round your spine. Sit toward the heels with a rounded spine.
Cat Stretch
Let pedal come up. You get a nice stretch. Press the pedal down. Come up with that rounded spine. We reverse it from the bottom to the top. Big exhale. As you lift your Chin and chest, push the floor away. Stretch the front of that throat. The jaw muscles. Sit back toward the heels, stretching, pushing into the hands.That should hopefully feel really good in your back. And then again, once you get down, can you keep that pedal up and let the, or sorry, keep the hips back and let the pedal come up and get a stretch in the arms. Press the pedal down. Coming up with that Archie back one more time. Curl from the tailbone, round your spine. Push back, sit toward the hills. Think of actively pushing and lengthen the hips away from those arms. Let the pedal come up. Get a nice stretch hands. Press the pedal down, come up with the rounded spine and then reverse the spine.
One more time from the bottom to the top. Big exhale as you lift the chin and chest and really stretch the front of that throat, pushed back, sit toward the heels, lengthening your spine, lengthening. And again, sitting back the, here's the little tricky bit. It's a let those arms come up and stretch. Staying here for another breath. Inhale, bring your head in line with your spine and maybe let the arms go higher and let the chest go lower and go for an even bigger stretch. All right, so from here we're going to turn the chair just a little bit and we're going to do a little bit of a pushup position with the cat.
So you're going to now want to be side facing with the chair. So you're going to flip the chair, hopefully your slides as easily as that does. If not, just hop on up and manhandle it a little bit. And for this one, I'm going to want it just a little bit of a heavier spring. So I did that first exercise on one spring on the bottom, and now I'm going to do this next one with one spring in the middle. So, um, if you are changing the spring at home, it's really the way that that helps to change the spring is if you use your one hand to lift the pedal and with the other hand you sort of change the spring. That's a nice easy way to change. So again, in the cap position you're going to press the pedal down with your, the hand that's closest to the pedal. And here we go.
We're finding that four legged position again, knees are underneath the hips, hands are under the shoulders. And where it gets tricky is now their pedal hand is higher than the support hand that's on the floor. So I actually have to bend my pedal arm to find neutral and still find a lift and lengthen my spine. So part a is just to pump the pedal and when you pump the pedal presses down, the rib cage lifts in opposition and you just pumped. I like it when I just say just, but as you know, it's not about what's moving, it's about what's not moving.
Push Up Prep
And after you feel like you've got that nice solid spine and it's not moving with the pedal pumping, take your opposite pedal leg back and again, find that long line out of the top of the head and can you pump the pedal again. So as you take more limbs off the ground, hopefully it's getting a little more challenging. And now you're ready for the full expression of this exercise, which is a pushup position. But go to a wider position. It's easier. And then if you can, try not to move the pelvis to pump the pedal. It is not easy. If you can hear him, I'm getting a little more work in my halves and you pump and you take it down, bring the knees down and we're going to just do a little variation of Yves gentry's threading the needle. So when you can press the pedal down, reach that support, head up to the ceiling. Big Inhale. As you twist, try not to twist through the hips. And as you exhale, you're going to thread that arm through. The back of the head, touches the floor, the elbow finds the floor, and then the shoulder touches the ground.
Push Up
And if you can get that right shoulder on the floor, then maybe you could even let that pedal come up. Oh, thank you for helping me rotate more and breathe. Can I just stay here? But we're do it again. Press it down. Reach, come to a three-legged cat. Finding that neutral. And now again, without the hips, can you twist through the waistline? Inhale. Exhale to reach up, exhale and thread the arm through the back of the hand. Elbow, shoulder touches down hopefully. And again, trying not to twist the hips, reach that pedal up and it does help you twist more. You can even look up to the ceiling. Huh? And if you want to do it another time, why not?
Thread the Needle
And thread the arm through. Maybe play around with the dynamics of it and do that last one a little faster. Oh yeah. So that's twisting to one way. Let's try that to the other side. Beginning with the cap. Push up first, but to end, let's come to that three legged cat reaching. Oh yeah, good prep. Let the pedal come up and just, you know, just easily turn that chair around.But maybe your chair's not as heavy as this one. Lucky you. And again I'm just gonna line it up so that I can press the pedal down with one arm. The support hand is on the floor and I think the trickiest part to this is finding neutral cause each side feels different, especially when you've got a different support hand on the pedal. And I'm just trying to find my neutral. Hopefully I'm there, right? So again, lift the head, lift the ribs and if nothing can move while I pump then I think I've got it.
Push Up Prep
And as I pump the pedal, especially when I press down, I feel the ribs lift our lift in opposition to the pedal pressing down from there, take your opposite leg back. So now I've got only one knee in, one hand down and that pedal arm is going to pump. I can already tell this is more challenging for me. I can feel it in my breath and maybe you feel if it's easier or harder just by the way your breathing after you get the pedal down again, why don't you go to your full pushup and goals with a wider position and just try to find that full push up position with that pedal arm bent. And I think for me, I like to say that you don't have to move that pedal.
Push Up
You can just think it and I'd rather that you think about pumping the pedal than moving the hips and pumping. Cause I can do that but I don't. Oh that's really hard. I don't, that's about it. I can't do many. I can talk. But can you pump the pedal without changing the hip? That's all I have. Okay. That was an exercise in humility. Let's go and thread the needle now. I think after that I deserve one of those.So from here, find that three legged cat. You're going to reach the arm out to the side and press the pedal down as you twist and reach up. Inhaling thread the arm through back of the hand touches, elbow touches, and the shoulder finds the floor. This is my favorite part is letting the pedal go up and it helps me twist more. Here we go. Press the pedal down. Come to a three legged cat, reaching out to the side. Inhale, exhale, twist and thread the arm through the back of the hand touches, elbow, touches the shoulder, finds the floor and I'm going to let the focus go up to the ceiling. Take the necklace away from my Chin and let the pedal go up.
Thread the Needle
Press that pedal down. Come to that three legged cat reaching out to the side just to reset. All right, let that pedal come up. So let's move on. Let's do the kneeling. Roommates, you're going to start or you turn the chair one more time? Cut to where you started so where the pedal is facing you and you're going to kneel. So this is the kneeling mermaid and in the kneeling mermaid you don't want to be too close and not too far away. So something in between your hand hopefully should be able to touch the pedal.
I just reached that for me, my right arm up your left maybe and press the pedal down and just give it a feel of how it feels. Now hopefully you didn't shift your hips away from you. Really keep the hips right underneath you and when you can, just an easy pump of the pedal arm. So be careful of reaching so much that the shoulders up in the earth, you just relax those. Now another thing to do if you're feeling your neck is you could turn your head and look to the pedal and that's doing the pump with a bent arm. Now let's do it with a straight arm, keeping the arms straight.
Kneeling Mermaid
You inhale to come up, exhale to press down just a couple more times like that. So gentle, easy sort of feel where you feel the stretch. For me. I feel a lot sort of in my low middle back, which is really nice. That's my tight spot. Not so much in the upper back but maybe it's going to be different on the other side and you can repeat those two moves one more time. So again, pumping with the left arm and then when you can't up and down just a few times. Inhale to come up. Exhale to go over. Now especially when you go over with the straight arm, reach with the arm, make that reach. Be a part of the full movement. Right?Cause I feel like sometimes we think it's all about this, but really full body. Use the arm, use the look of the head, use that bottom arm or that feels good. One more time and hopefully my hips are saying right underneath me. Come up to s kneeling, not standing, kneeling, but I'm just going to turn my back to you for just a moment. Okay, so here we go. Same position and I also like to be a little back so that my hand has lots of options. I don't really want to be forward and reaching my hand behind me, so I like to be have the chair in front of me so I can sort of have lots of forward options for my arm. So I'm going to reach my left arm up, look to the peddle this time and I'm going to press down and if like I just did, I feel like I'm a little close. Go further away. Oh yes, there is my stretch and I'm going to do this the way I did it on the other sets and look straight ahead for the first bit.
I'm going to start to pump my pedal arm. Now hopefully you're seeing that my shoulder isn't going up and down, that it's really just my arm. Oh my body did not like that. Shoulder move I demonstrated, so let's not do that again. And then with both arms straight up and down. Inhale up, exhale over again. Inhaler. Exhale over from, I forget for a second that my head's a part of the spine.
One more time. Inhale up, exhale over and do the next set. Just turn the head. Kind of relieves the neck for some of us. And let's try that again. Pumping the arm. So even here, I'm going to really press and reach just a couple more on and up and down in the tour. So I know it doesn't look like a very big motion, but darn, this feels good and big exhale. I'm just a couple more honestly. I could do this one for a few more days. One more. Yes.
And then you're going to come to a kneeling position reaching that Arma and you can reach both arms up if you feel fancy or you can just drop your arms by your side. All right, so leaving the chair, Jesse, business as it is, let's lie down. You and me will lie down and um, let's do some pumping with the pedals. So, um, I have to have it straight cause that way I feel like I'm doing it straight down on there. And then I would suggest I'm lying down and mix even. You can find a nice easy lying down position and then pulling the pedal down with your feet. And that's just the first test of the spring. And even if you think it's too heavy than just change the spring and lighten it. So here we are. While you lie there, you're hoping that you're not gonna Tuck in the pelvis to do this. Next move. I really would like your pelvis speech just heavy on the floor and as the peddle starts to move there is a tendency to tuck. And if you want to, you can place your hands at your hipbones.
Arches
It just remind your hips to stay down, which is what I'm doing. So take a look at the feet and all I'm going to do is just an easy point of the feet and then a less easy wrap of your foot around the pedal as you lower the heels. So I really think of a bird on a perch. And if you've ever seen a bird perching, they have those two front talons, but they also have a talent on the back of the heel. And that's really what I'm thinking of. And if your foot starts to cramp, you know, really just think of the heel part. Don't really think about grabbing the front as much unless you're strong enough to one more time maybe to inhale inhalative point.Exhale to wrap that back talent around and be bold and do it one more time. I know it doesn't look very exciting, but I hope you're feeling this at home. So next bit. So here we go. So can you start to let the pedal come up and point the foot and then start to bring the pedal down and as you continue to bring it down, think of the heels wrapping around. That's the slow move version. So pedal two foot pedal, two foot.
Double Leg Pump
I don't know if you can really see that, but that's the order that I'm trying to go. Push the pedal, wrap the foot, lift the pedal, point the foot, lower the pedal, wrap the heels, keeping that lowering down position. Can you extend your right leg forward up to the ceiling? You can flex or point the foot and if the ceiling is too hard, you can also just go to here. But hopefully your hips haven't shifted. And that same little wrapping and pointing action's going to happen as you do single leg pumps. So once you get it going, you can go faster. And actually I'd appreciate if you would find just your own rhythm and maybe it's slower than mine, maybe it's faster, but breathe with it and there's going to be a moment where it's a cohesive singular movement of just pumping the pedal and everything sort of comes together. Change sides when you can. So again, when you hold onto the pedal, it's not just that pointed Barbie foot.
Single Leg Pumps
Hopefully you've got something in between. Kathy grant would call this her neutral foot. I wish I could tell you the number of times she yelled neutral foot at me before I finally got it. I'll never forget the day I think I said, oh, I get it. And I think she walked out of the room. She said, I've been trying to tell you neutral foot for years. And she really had, I just didn't quite know what the heck she was talking about. I like to secretly think that she went out for a smoke or, yeah, little harder foot for me. I don't know if you can tell by my rhythm, but just try to find your own rhythm. Really making sure that you're using and working that ankle joint to both feet down very simply when you can, pushing down, maybe even press the elbows down, lift the hips up, inhaling and exhale. Stick that butt out as you come down.
Bridge
So very simple. Elevator up of the hips. Hello Hamstrings. But comes back down one more time. Lift the hips up and just to say hello to those hamstrings even more. How about a simple marching keeping the hips lifted. Yup. And again, it's not about the what? The little fancy leg movement.
Marching
It's about you trying to keep the hips still. And even while that leg comes into the chest and if you're feeling fancy, you could even go for an extension of the leg. Yes. And maybe let's try these extensions with wrapping the foot instead of flexing. Well that's definitely harder for me.Really says hello to that metatarsal arch of mine. Yes. Keeping the feet down. Inhale. And as you exhale, slowly come down, you can roll down or you can stick your bum out. You decide which one after your pelvis comes down and let the pedal lift up. And let's go for spine stretch forward. So come up any way you wish you can roll to your side to sit up or just sit up any way you wish.
And you want to have the machine between your legs and you. I don't want you to open your legs too wide, just legs on sort of either side. So spine stretch forward is next. So, uh, it is a part of, uh, this is named after a mat exercise. You could, by the way, if you're having trouble with this, you could get a trusty yoga block. Maybe you have a pillow at home, anything. But, um, you could just elevate your hips. You could even roll up the back of your mat and sit on top of that.
But I'm gonna use the yoga block for now cause it's very comfortable. So here we go. So sitting on top legs, not too wide. And I'm going to actually go and take this into extension first. And in this position you can bend the elbows, you just a few pumps cause it feels so good, especially after being lying down flat there and let the pedal come up. Now from here, inhale from the bottom to the top, curl the pelvis, middle back, upper back and can you pump here, keep breathing. And again it's just an easy pump.
Spine Stretch Forward
You don't have to bring the pedal all the way down to your legs but just pump. And if you find a nice easy breath, I find that my everything just sorta comes together. I am pressing with my arms, I'm feeling a rounded spine and I'm also lifting up out of the top of the head even though my spine is rounded now a neutral spine and that's, I find even harder the hardest because I need to lift in my low back and not arch my upper back and pump another set for three, two. And I want to do one more from here. Let's go for reaching that sort of forearm onto the pedal. Go back to that rounded spine. And think of the pedal going up and you letting the pedal go forward.As you round back. And in this position I bend my elbows and on the exhale I let the pedal sort of give me some traction for that mid back of mine that doesn't like to round. Inhale and maybe I'm going to find my belts, I'm a little more lifted and I can really feel the ribs going back against the pedal. One more time. Inhale. And as you exhale, ribs, arms round. Cool. So spine church forward with some variations. Uh, the next one is a triceps it. So you're going to bring that pedal or the block closer, especially if you have tight hamstrings, you're going to bring it closer and you're going to sit on top of the block and you can sit cross legged if you wish. Or both legs. I just don't want this, right? So pick something for both and I'm going to try to find my sitz phones.
I'm really sitting up tall and you're going to find that pedal again and it's not, I have it still on one spring on the middle. So it's not too heavy. It's not too like a Goldie lax. So from here you're gonna press the pedal down and hold. So with the pedal press down, let's just play around for a bit of, with that idea of what a lot of people do, which is to bring the shoulder blades together, which is a very nice thing and release. So I'm really pressing down to draw those shoulder blades together and down my back. That does feel good and release.
Tricep Press Prep
And just one more time, press draw those shoulder blades together. Lift out of the top of the head and release. Now the next bit, can you bend the elbows and not pinch the shoulder blades together? And I'm just feeling the spring, I'm trying to feel both sides of the pedal and I'm not slumping forward and I'm definitely not pinching the shoulder blades that I'm just letting that happen. And following the spring, and this is where I'm getting a little tight, so I'm just going to stay here for a moment and breathe and I'm gonna Inhale, press the pedal down ever so slightly.
Tricep Press Sit
Lifting, breathing. And as you exhale, I'm letting the pedal do the work and I'm hoping that you can see what's happening. And I'm smiling because Kathy used to do this seated on the pedal behind me and I don't really know how she would get all of her body parts to all of my body parts, but it was, it wasn't quite about pumping the pedal as much as it was about just letting the arms bend and without tension. Oh, that's my hard bit right there. So I'm just going to say here, breathe. And if it's a little too much, I'm just going to push down just a little bit and it would be more about sitting up tall and the range of movement without my shoulder blades pressing together and down my back. And I'm really just following the spring. And I used to call this one, I still actually call it the Zen rock garden because there's not much to see, can you? I mean you can barely see the pedal moving, but I, when it sorta titans, I just take an inhale, maybe press the pedal down a smidge. And as I exhale, I just try to find the pedal bending my arms and I'm just trying to keep my shoulder blades as is. And I see how high up my shoulders are willing to go. And I think that's about it. And I press down a little bit on an inhale and I see if on the next exhale I've got more, I don't know, we'll find out maybe.
And then at the end of that series, and you can do this for a bit, maybe you just pump for a bit
And then as you come down you can just sort of measure yourself off. It's like the Virgo way to come down. So, um, I want kind of where your wristwatch is, that's where you want the pedal to hit you. So risks on, pedal up and just relax. So the way I remember the swan from the floor, cause I get a little lost in the very simple loop, is that the pedal is up and the ribs are down. And then when the pedal comes down, the ribs lift off again. The ribs come down, I find spine alignment and I let the pedal come up as it comes up. Then I let myself drop my head into that full delicious shoulders, slouch for me against her to press the pedal down. Head comes up in line with the spine and then stretch the jaw muscles, the ribs, and then ribs come down, pedal comes up.
Swan Variation
And now let's do a few in real time. We're sort of a faster time. Inhale to exhale. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. Inhale X, Ham. If you're faster than me, great. Just don't hyperventilate. Maybe you do one whole one in inhale and one whole one and exhale.And on this next one, I'm going to keep my rib cage down in jest to thoracic extension. So hopefully just doing that extension from a different place. And I'm going to pump here about five times five and I've even done this with bending elbows. If it feels better, three, I'm going to alternate two. So I'm doing straight arms bent, arms stretch. Oh, good afternoon to me.
So hopefully now you feel warmed up enough to start where most people start their chair or one to chair, which is with footwork. So I'm gonna add another spring. So right now I have one in the middle and I like to spring evenly. So I'm gonna add another spring to the middle. So right now I have two springs in the middle and that's for me.
You decide what works best for you. If it's too heavy, then make it lighter and if it's too light, make it heavier. But remember we're also going to be doing this for a while. So here we go. So I'm going to sit on top of the chair and press the pedal down and ideally you start with the toes on and you're going to just stay here. And I like to have the pubic bone in line with the front edge of the chair. So I'm pretty far forward and you can use those hands to sort of help you push down and maybe lift up taller if you don't think you need that.
Toes
You can cross your arms here, you can put your hands behind your neck. But if you're okay with not holding on, let's start with one hand on the tummy, one hand on the low back, and you're going to just lower and lift your heels up. Can you move? Well, I'm gonna adjust my feet. Can you move the legs independently from your pelvis? I'm asking this of myself right now to, okay, there we go. Finally.All right. So Ken, my thighs go up and down without my pelvis moving and then try to find, not heels too low, not heels too high, but something in between and start to pump the pedal. So what I'm hoping to feel for as I pump, I'm feeling both legs is that my hip stay nice and still. And if they're still enough then I crossed my arms in front for the last few pumps. I'm pressing forward to feel their opposition in my belly. He pressing down, changing the spring with the pedal down. Go to arches on right. So here we go. Pet pump again.
Arches
And if you're unsure of whether or not your pelvis is stable, go back and just put your hands back down there. I think I got it. Start to pump. And ideally you find just a nice easy pump. It doesn't have to go all the way down, but I do want to feel a on the way up. Right? Cause that's where the work and sort of magic happens. The down not so much. It's more about the up for me.I'm going to keep the pedal down. Trying not to move the hips is harder for me. He'll go on again, pump, right? So the resist, push, resist, push. So you're getting just an easy work in here and hopefully some nice control in the belly. Okay. So you know about holidays, it always sort starts simple and easier to go. This is fine. And then we make it harder cause we're going to go somewhat asymmetrical.
Heels
Press the pedal down, extend one leg forward, trying not to move all this business pump and keep breathing. Lifting up tall out of the spa time. Make sure you breathe in all directions. Change sides. Hopefully that was 10 ish, right? Or this is the hard part. Can you press lift up and pump 10 times? Wow. What a difference. Two different legs writes the same thing, resists on the way up or petal down and with the pedal down and you're done.
Single Leg Heel
So hopefully if you feel it fully warmed spine, moved legs warm. But that should be a nice safe thing for you to do at home. I hope you enjoy that. And try some other more, um, sort of dynamic or balancing moves as that gets stronger. Have Fun you guys. Thank you.The Wundaful Wunda Chair: Wunda Chair Progression
Mention
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Blossom (Teacher) |
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Lacey |
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JANICE R |
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Hannah K |
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Cristi |
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Talia A |
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Macarena V |
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John Marston |
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Rachel |
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Jill |
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Elizabeth B |
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Karen C |
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Katherine W |
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Lauren G |
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Samantha S |
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Ember Hopkins |
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Alana M |
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Cheryl S |
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Ronnie G |
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Samina M |
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Megan Macgregor |
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Silviah |
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Gerri M |
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Lori M |
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Emily Tubbert |
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Carolan A |
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KIKE MARIN |
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Sook Wern C |
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Gina M |
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Jackie H |
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Peggy P |
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Colleen C |
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