EXO Chair - Beginner

Hi, everyone. Thank you for joining me today. We're gonna do a quick beginning chair class, and we'll just go ahead and get started right now. So what I want us to do oh, first, I should tell you that On the chair, I have one spring on the second gear. So 2. For springs.

And we're just gonna begin with a standing roll down. So we'll face the chair, take a moment to organize your body, Feel the arms right next to the sides of the thighs. And as the arms reach, just gently down, feel the spine lifting in opposition towards up and inhale. As you exhale, let your head drop down, let your body start to roll down towards the floor. So as we round, we'll let the knees soften.

So you can just consider this as a check-in, a check-in for you to link your mind and your body. Pausing at the bottom to take an inhale. Exhale as you roll up feeling the rotation of the pelvis first, bringing the pelvis up right and stacking the spine over the top. And as you stand, the arms come again just to the size of the body. And we inhale, we'll do 3, chin first, then abdominal hort the downward motion of the spine.

The head and the arms just hang heavy. And again, we're just checking in seeing how our body is feeling in this moment and inhale. Push the ground away as you lift up with the center of your body using the front of your body to move and mobilize the back of your body. And as you stand, the head comes up and the eyes gaze straight ahead and inhale. Last time rounding down, feeling supported, equally weighted through both feet.

Heavy in the spine, lifted in the center of the body, and in here, And again, pushing the ground away so that activity down with the legs for me is a nice way to think about pulling up in opposition from the front of the body come all the way up to standing and step towards the chair. So we're gonna roll down again, but this time we're gonna reach for the chair for the petal and just place the hands on top of it. We're gonna continue taking the body down. And as we go down into that same rounded shape, we're allowing the weight of our body to press the pedal into the ground. Maybe not into the ground.

If if you need to come a little less, that would be perfectly fine. And as you exhale, push down on the pedal, push down with the legs and lift the spine until the shoulders and the hip joints are approximately level. And then as you inhale, bend inwards. So we get that stretchy, the back of the legs, And then we lift up with our abdominals working to maximize the curvature in the spine. Inhaled to go down.

Keeping the pelvis directly over the feet. Keeping the head down. The eyes look through the legs. And inhale down. And we use our breath to create abdominal connection We used the down push of the arms and the legs to create opposition.

Last time everyone inhaled down. And exhale to come up. This time, we'll bring the pedal all the way to the top of spring, so I have to come a little higher to do that. Once the springs have let go, we will just continue up. And back to standing.

Okay. So let's come to the mat. All the way down onto our backs, and you're gonna bring your toes up onto the pedal. We're gonna bend the knees You may have to adjust your feet as you go and try to get the pedal to come down. Onto the ground. Nice and soft.

Once it lands, we're gonna organize so that we feel like a prehensile shape with the toes. And the heels are grounded into the mat. And from there, we'll flatten the spine and begin rolling the pelvis So just a simple pelvic curl, inhaling when you arrive at the top, and keeping the pedal down on the ground. So that becomes challenging as the pelvis goes more towards down, really use your arms there to help stabilize your torso. And then again, articulate, flatten first.

That's the most difficult part. Once the weight of the body starts to lift up over the pedal, it becomes a little bit easier to organize around inhale to pause at the top. If this feels too difficult for you in this moment, you could just do this with both feet on the ground. Rolling all the way down, returning into neutral, or feel the tailbone come down. Keep the arms active as you roll up.

Keep the inner thighs active. Keep the heels pressing into the floor and in here. And rolling the body down, down, really getting the maximum rotation the maximum rounding of the lower spine, just one more time in here, and flatten the spine feel that the feet are active. The backs of the legs are active. It shouldn't be too hard to feel that. And holding from the top, inhaling And exhaling as we peel down all the way Once you're down, bring the pedal up.

And bring your legs up into a tabletop position. So the next big thing we're gonna do is just a little bit of core activation. You're gonna bring your hands to the thighs. So your knees are bent and your hands are pressing against your thighs. And what I want us to do is just actively press the thighs back into the hands and the hands forward towards the thighs.

So just by doing that, we might find feel and find a little bit of center body connection. From there, take the right arm and the right leg and reach left arm and left leg pressed together and come back. And right arm and right leg reach, the body is staying stable in space and press and right arm and right leg reach. And press 1 more, right arm, and right leg. Reach. Keep that activity in the left side of the body.

And changing sides. Left arm and left leg reach and back So in a little while, keep going. Reach. We're gonna talk about that creation of legs pulling in, arms pushing down. We're gonna relate it to a different exercise, but I wanted you to feel it here first.

And back one more time. Reach And back, bring your knees into your chest, just take a small break, come back to the tabletop position, or right arm up to the ceiling, left arm to the right thigh. So by cross patterning here, we'll get a little bit of oblique challenge, right arm left leg reach, and back. Feel that cross patterning of the left arm pressing against the right thigh and back. Doesn't probably look very difficult, but it can be difficult one more time. Reach.

And back, change sides, right arm, left thigh, left arm, right leg, reach, So there's a elongation and a pressure that stays consistent and reach Try to orient the hand directly over the shoulder as it comes back and too, and reach and one and reach. Both knees into the chest. And bring the feet down. So I'm actually gonna scoot a little bit more towards the chair. My feet are on the inside of the chair. Arms are going to reach back overhead from here, lift the head and chest.

Press down with your feet and roll up through your spine, bringing your hands to the pedal. Bend your elbows. Press the pedal down as you sit tall in your body. I've just stopped when the pedal has run into my shins. As the pedal releases in the spring's release, we go back into our round spine.

Let the pedal go and roll back. Finding the low back and taking the arms overhead. And inhale, head and chest, It's helpful to press down with your feet, roll up, and find the pedal. Elbows bend and the body comes into an upright position. The spine rounds as the arms reach forward.

We roll down articulating through the spine, lifting the arms, and bringing the head back 3 more times lift up. And roll up. Just creating some spinal mobility find the pedal. Bend the elbows and pull the pedal down. Think of pulling the pedal apart.

You can't. It's just what it is, but the intention of trying to pull the elbows out wide and the thought of stretching the fabric of the pedal underneath your hands to the sides is for me quite helpful anyway. Lift up. Roll that. Hands come to the pedal. Stretch the pedal as you bend your elbows and lift your spine.

Round your spine and take the arms forwards. Roll back and or reach overhead. And last time left, chest lift position. Bring the body up in a round spine. Find the pedal.

Bend the elbows wide and bring the back into that upright position and then simply just lift the pedal up and we're gonna come up. I'm gonna change the spring to 1 spring on 3. And one spring on 2. Okay. Both springs now connected. So all springs are relative to to what you like. So you can decide.

I'm just sharing what I'm deciding. We're gonna start with the body right at the front of the chair with the heels on the pedal fingertips towards the backage of the chair and the body is upright. So we have active hands helping us keep the spine lifted and straight. Press the pedal down and lift the pedal up. Press the pedal down.

So what we did on the floor a minute ago, I want you to feel that you're dragging your legs against the creating that inward pressing energy in an effort to find the abdominal connection. We'll do 4. And lift. 3, holding that body very straight. And two, and left and 1 and left. Place your toes on the chair.

Parallel to the sitting bones or lined up with the sitting bones. We take the pedal down. And up and down and up, creating a range where we can feel challenged, but also not changing the orientation of the spy. One nice thing to think about is keeping equal weight over both sitting bones, press down, and lift, and 2. And lift, and 1, and left bring the heels together toes apart. Squeeze your heels together, create your upright position, and press and lift.

So the legs press down and the spine lifts in opposition, then we feel the abdominal muscles actively working a to stabilize the spine and b to bring the knees up towards the body and 4. And lift squeezing the heels together all the time to access the inner thigh muscles and to and left and 1 and left. Carefully step off of the pedal. Stand up. I'm gonna change my spring again.

I'm using now 2 springs on 2. So that's from the bottom, the second hook. We're gonna put the right foot on the chair The left leg is reaching down into the ground. Press down through the pedal and let the right leg lean into the chair. Organize so that you're in a straight diagonal line from your head down towards your left heel and push down with your right foot.

And up and press the pedal down to just working the foot and press the pedal down and lift. Keep the spine organized. Keep active through the back leg. And 5 and left and 4, pressing into the toes. If you're tight in your feet like me, there's potential for a stretch there.

Last two and up. Last one and up. Lift the knee off the chair. Place the right foot down, place the left foot on the chair, and the left knee comes to the top. So it has you need to find your alignment Right. He'll press this down and we push the foot and control the up.

And push down, trying to square the pelvis as best as possible, and push down and lift up keeping that right heel actively pressing down to the ground and lift up And 5, working in both directions and 4, and list up and 3, and list up and do the sides much harder for me and lift up and 1 and lift up lift the knee off the chair, bring the pedal to the top, step down with both feet, and come up. Okay. So we're gonna remove one of those springs. So we just have one spring again. Sit on the side of the chair or sit sideways on the chair, I guess, is a better way to say that. The hand on the bottom side of the body comes onto the pedal.

Just lined up with the shoulder. The other arm will reach up towards the ear. We're gonna lean into that petal, reaching the leg that's on the ground away. Find that beautiful side stretch. And then feel the contraction in the same place the stretch was happening to bring yourself up to that diagonal line and inhale over And exhale, create length in the body, head in the foot, reaching an opposition, and inhale over, and exhale up.

Making a change. Go down. Bring the upper arm around and allow the arm on the pedal to rotate or bring that shoulder blade up. So I'm lifting towards the top of the spring. Not all the way, but some.

Come back around into the side stretch position and lift up and inhale reach over And exhale is you take your rotation, allowing the shoulders to become as square as possible. So in order to do that, I have to let the pedal lift. Come back around and lift up. Last time in here, Excel into your rotation, inhale back around, and exhale to come all the way up and turn around. So you have the one leg straight, the hand on the pedal, the other arm up near the ear, and we've created a long diagonal straight line.

From there, we lean into the spring stretching the side of the body, and left up and inhale reaching over just trying to get get a little bit of all the different parts of the body involved in this quick routine and inhale. Stretching the side of the body and then strengthening the side of the body as we come up. We go inhale over, add the rotation, taking the upper arm around, letting the pedal lift so the shoulders become more square. Come back around, find your side stretch shape position, and lift up, and go down in here, And, XL, as you take your rotation, come back around, and up long line, active everywhere, active through the leg, Stabilizing that underneath shoulder, both shoulders, but particularly that one, this is maximum rotation of the body. Back to the side stretch.

Maybe we go a little deeper into the stretch and then all the way up. And we're gonna turn around, come onto the chair, So I'm orienting my body so that my the front of my hips, my hip bones are a little bit towards the back the front, excuse me, edge of the chair, active through the legs, lift the eyes, allow the springs to assist you this kind of So if you need a a heavier spring, feel free to make adjustments as needed so we're coming up into spinal extension. I feel the abdominals working to support, not just on the down, but in both directions, eyes, shoulder blades draw down. We allow the spring to assist as we come up into our spinal extension, take the low back down, the mid back down, and the upper back down. So we're doing reverse articulation, neck, middle back, all the back.

And down one more time, finishing with the body in a straight line, and left up And back down, bringing the pedal all the way down, scoot back, Bend the arms, lift the pedal, lift yourself up, and stand close to the back edge of the chair. Inhale here. We're finishing the way we started, but slightly different. We're gonna roll down Reaching for the petal. Once you feel connected with your hands to the petal, we're gonna lengthen the body out so reaching out into a flat back and then pushing the pedal away with the arms pushing down into the ground with the feet as you round your spine, giving it a stretch, and inhale as you reach down low. Excel as you undulate back into your round shape and inhale flattening the back.

And exhale rounding. Looking the head drop as the pedal comes up. Reaching out through the tip of the head as we lengthen out through the spine, and rounding bringing the spring to the top, letting the hands come away from the pedal, rolling all the way back up, And we're done. Thank you so much.