Inventing Konnector

(upbeat music) Hi everyone, welcome to the Pilates Report. I'm really excited about today's conversation. I'll be joined by Viktor Uygan and we're gonna be talking about the Konnector. Welcome Viktor, so wonderful to have you here. Hello Gia, thank you for having me, I'm very excited.

Yeah, thank you. So my first question and I'm sure it's what's on everyone's mind is what is the Konnector? Konnector if you really explain in a way mechanical version, it is a one pulley rope system. Actually let me correct that, I'm really sorry. Correction, it is one rope pulley system that enables you to work with four limbs at a time.

Also it gives you movement options, like reciprocal movement patterns or contralateral, unilateral, as well as bilateral. That's wonderful and what inspired you to create the Konnector? Reformer was one of my favorite, Joseph Pilates apparatus. And working with the reformer many years I felt like the straps didn't have the potential that could have. I felt very limited with the movement possibilities, which legs together go down and up, bend and push and circles.

And almost I felt very free when I did circles but I knew that wasn't it. So I wanted to do single leg possibilities. I wanted to bilateral movement patterns, I wanted to hold, stabilize one leg and move the other leg. So the only way to achieve that was getting rid of one strap and do the reformer work with single strap. So instead of doing that I wanted to find the option that we could be free and move the way we wanted to move in the reformer.

That's wonderful, so I wanna switch gears a little bit and talk about Joseph Pilates as an inventor, 'cause we all know he created all the movement patterns that we do in Pilates but he created these wonderful pieces of apparatus that we use. Can you talk about how his work as an inventor influenced you to create the Konnector? Oh my God, first I feel very privileged of what he did and imagine his time, his possibilities, the things that it was available for him, the times weren't easy. So for him to able to do what he did, invent many different machines, it's unbelievable for me because if you really think about it I did my first prototype in Home Depot but it was ridiculous. Like there's places that it's available for us when we have an idea we can just go and create things.

And Joseph Pilates did not have that. So in his era to be productive and to implement his thoughts, his ideas and actually make it happen, I believe it's fantastic. That's wonderful. And then why do you think it's important for people to develop new ideas? Like how does that enhance your career?

Well, Joseph Pilates was like me, he had a new idea, he went on to implement. So if we don't actually search for more I believe we'll never get there. That doesn't mean we don't appreciate what we had but I find like for me not being free in the reformer straps was a small problem. I always say the reformer was a rose and every rose has a thorn. So for me that was the thorn and I wanted to fix or I wanted to deal with the thorns.

So if we go after the problems that we have in our lives I believe we find solutions and most of those solutions becomes a new inventions. That's great. Do you have any advice for people who maybe have some ideas that they're hesitant to explore? What would you tell them to do? I believe they need to go after it because we are so used to having problems in our lives and we say it out loud, we say like, "Oh, I wanna do that but I wish it was like this," or "I like this but I wish it was that." And we don't stay and trying to find a solution for those little problems or we think we are the only one feel that's the problem but we are billions of us in this world.

And I believe if you truly feel something you're doing has a small problem, they need to go after it and find a solution, how they can fix it and more they do this, more they get creative, more they get creative in a way they get successful in finding something new and inventing something. Yeah and I had imagined that would help anyone who's experienced something like burnout. It gives them another avenue to explore so they're not doing the same thing or getting stuck in a rat. It gives them an outlet for their creativity. Definitely, definitely.

And for me being a part of the teacher not copy exactly what you learn is understand the information and you have to implement the information that you have heard your own way, that makes you special, that makes you teacher, that separates us from a DVD player. And I believe it's the same way with the problems. Great, so I know you have the Konnect Method in addition to the Konnector. So can you tell us the steps that you went from creating the Konnect Method into creating the Konnector and how that came about? Sure, so I will show you guys later but my first journey when I felt very frustrated with the reformer straps, because I wasn't able to move freely.

I took my clients to a mat work, while we were doing a mat work I felt very satisfied, I felt like the movement was free, I could ask them to move legs and arms together or contralateral or unilateral but there were a lot of coordination problem, there were a lot of am I supposed to feel this problem? And so to give them a little bit information, extra information, I start to use bands and it's the extra long band and at the end of the band I put loops so people can put their feet in the loops so they don't feel like they... You guys all know when you work with the mat work with the straps on the feet and you're trying to teach the exercise you hear the snapping sounds, people losing the band from their feet and they have to put them back there. So this was a quick solution. It's a loop for their feet and the other parts would be in their hands, I will show you later on.

But this way when I ask them to, "Okay, move your right arm," they were actually feeling the right arm is one way is connected to the left. So they were more aware of what was going on in their body, where their limbs are and what will happen if they move one limb, what the other three limb will do. So I was very happy and I called that work that I do Konnections and the Konnections have different ways. You could do Konnections for mat and I use all Joseph Pilates exercises and I applied the band work and Konnections could be for dancers, Konnections for dance, Konnections for golf, Konnections for anything that you like to do. So that was my beginning.

Once I figured that out, "Oh my God, this is really helping." I said, "How can I bring this work toward reformer?" And I knew only way that I could do that is creating a one rope pulley system because the information source has to be one information source for the limbs to be connected. And I think that first Konnector was with two straps only. And then I said, "Yes but we don't do just arms and legs. We use them together, can I do the full body workout?" And that was another problem. After I found a solution my first problem, my problem was, it's not a full body workout.

You see, that's the perfect, it goes back to your question. I didn't settle, I didn't say, "You know what? I should be just happy, I found what I want." I was like, "No, it needs to be four limbs because the whole body works that way." And then I was able to figure out to put four straps. That's so cool. So you had a few different iterations of it.

Yeah, so the Konnect Method, when you ask Konnect Method, Konnect Method is nothing new but I'm really niching afterwards because of my products. Konnect Method mission is I try to use external resources to create internal connections in human movement. So basically I use a band to create internal connections. I use Konnector to use internal connections during the movement. Wonderful, so then when you started to create the Konnector when you had even just the two bands or the straps, I should say and then the four straps, how did you go about production?

Did you hire someone out to create it? Did you have a prototype? What were your steps in the creation of it? Wow, I mean, I ruined this question. I already told you I went to Home Depot, right?

So it was all in my head, I'm in Home Depot, I'm in my house cutting things, bringing to work and the clients coming, taking sessions and they're asking, "What is Viktor doing there?" I'm like cutting wood outside and drilling holes in my hand. So the first prototype was in literally Home Depot. Once I realized it worked and after that I had to make a decision what to do. Do I wanna be equipment accessory or equipment manufacturer or do I wanna be educator? And my passion is for movement, my passion is creating education and creating more products.

So I said, "Okay, why don't I go someone that who knows what they're doing already, creating equipment, they have good customer service, they could actually make a big impact and distribute this product for me." I made that decision first. And then the best choice for me at a time was Balanced Body because for many years they've been proved and they have track that they are open to innovation, they're open to create different things, they're adding patents, patented products. So from like the reformer behind me from Infinity Bar, that the system that moves the whole carriage with the springs and comes back the revolt and many things, I was like, "All right, I gotta go see if they'll be interested on Konnector." That's great. So then after you connected with Balanced Body to create the actual product, how did you go about marketing it? Did you just do it on social media, word of mouth?

What were your steps in marketing? Yes, it was very different. First we started, social media was there but it wasn't popular like now. So we were doing a lot of... They would invite me, Balanced Body will invite me Pilates on Tour and in Pilates on Tour I will have Konnector and I will show the attendees between their workshops.

And then I start to do more social media and that's it. I do a lot of trainings, I do a lot of workshops but as you guys know it's hard, it's hard to get the word out and it's something new. And I found out Pilates community is pretty much, they are very happy what they have and it takes time for them to even try something different. Did you get any resistance from teachers saying that they didn't wanna try it or they were nervous about it or were people pretty open when you would talk to them? It's different, when it's face-to-face and when they try it, it's amazing.

I don't even have to say anything, the product sells themself. When they don't, if they're looking at it from my videos or in the social media, I mean, there's many different comments, right? Some says, "Oh my God, this is amazing, where can I get this?" Without even they trying, they wanna have it. Some says, "What's the point?" And I'm like, "What's the point? If you don't see that forearms connected, the full body connected and you can move in a human pattern instead of together, I'm not sure what to say." And some will say, "This is fantastic, is this still Pilates or not?" It's all open but for me it's in Pilates Reformer.

And for me, the Pilates is principles that he brought and he packaged with his equipment and exercises. And as long as I follow his footsteps and teach with his principles I feel like it is really Pilates, it's a more versatile Pilates without changing it. That's awesome. So what are some common misconceptions that people have about the Konnector? I'm sure you've heard a ton of different things over the years.

Yes, so one of them is they think when they have Konnector they will lose the regular two strap exercises. They say, "But I liked the original movement patterns. I wanna do it together. And if I do Konnector I don't have two reformers." And I'm like, "Okay, Konnector gives you options. It doesn't take things away." Correction, except the one thing, they're not able to cheat anymore.

The clients won't able to use and cheat anymore. (laughing) Because of the straps not fixed, if you ask them to move both legs together in the same time, down and up. And if they are using the right side more than the left, you're gonna see that legs is not moving in the same time. So you as a teacher able to tell them, you're not moving together, you're using your right side more than left side. And most cases you don't even have to because the client immediately feels it.

And they go like, "Oh, okay, let me make the adjustment. Now I can move." It brings their focus back into their body and they realize what to do. They need to send correct message to their limbs or legs to move correctly. So yes, it doesn't take anything out of your reformer. As long as you cue both legs together down and up, together circles, it's gonna act like regular reformer.

But you have the option now to move one limb at a time away from each other or towards each other and many more. That's great. Yeah, I've definitely felt that myself too 'cause I've used the Konnector and then there were times where I thought both of my legs were doing the same thing and then I could feel one leg was going down sooner than the other. So I had to, the teacher didn't correct me I felt it myself and I was able to fix it on my own instead of having that correction given to me verbally. So it's a really cool tool for that.

Konnector wakes up your inner teacher during movement because it provides the appropriate steps with feedback, right? Hmm mm, it definitely does. So if a teacher or a studio owner wanted to implement this into their studio, what are some of the benefits that you've seen for a studio or a business? All right, other than I can talk about probably one hour why this is good for a human, full range of motion, reciprocal movement pattern, having the legs to be coordinated with each other because some people think is also, I'm sorry, this goes back to previous question. They think, oh, it's like a trapeze work.

Yes and no. If you lay down on trapeze and you use four straps, each limb, your legs will be independent but they will not be dependent each other's movement patterns. They are not connected with each other. If you move your right arm only, only the right spring will get the tension will change. And the other three springs will not know what's going on.

The biggest difference with Konnector, doesn't matter which limb you move, all the other limbs has to agree or disagree to movement patterns. So they are totally connected with each other and they create the movement with agreement while they're being independent. So other than all this value is it is exciting. Starting from the studio owners, bringing something new and you know something that you're doing better for your clients and for your teachers, teachers get excitement, they get more creative and they feel like they can't wait to work again, they can work to teach again. We all get monotone and we keep doing things, that's why we love continuing education.

With the Konnector it becomes another continuing, not only becomes another continuing education, once they go back and start to use them they keep finding different ways to approach clients. And they're excited because now they have a tool that they can really make a bigger difference in the client's journey or goals and then the clients, and the clients starts to feel it, clients starts to feel the different movement patterns, the challenge, the things that they said, "Oh my God, hold on, I have to focus." That's a good thing, right? Or "I can not talk to you right now, I'll tell you later, let me do this first." It's a fantastic way to keep them engaged. So going back, why it's good for many studios, I got this many times. We do group deals as well to trying to get more clients to our studio.

Things like Groupon, ClassPass or many different things. I have many studios actually. One of the first thing they said, "We are converting more clients because we have a Konnector." Once they feel the Konnector and what we do in our group classes, they wanna do different studios, they hop studios but they cannot find the studio with the Konnectors. So they come back and they convert to become a member. That's wonderful. So win-win.

Yeah, yeah, it sounds like it's exciting for everyone and everyone wins, that's great. That's how I see it. Yeah, oh, I wanna remind the people attending too, if you do have any questions for Viktor feel free to add those to the chat 'cause we'll have time at the end to ask Viktor any of your questions. I have a few more and then he's gonna give us a demonstration which is gonna be so great to see. So have you experienced any challenges when you were developing the Konnector?

And if so, what were the challenges that you face? Yeah, it's not easy. The idea usually doesn't just come in in your head and you just go immediately, "Oh, I got the solution and it's in the market and everybody's buying it." I believe there's many, many challenges. Even going to, just putting in my head, going to Home Depot, doing the first prototype, when I decided to do the four straps it was a one circle loop, I first did the first circle loop. And then I try and I laid down, I had straps in my feet, I had straps in my hands and I pulled them down together and it's like, it didn't go anywhere.

And I'm like, "Oh no, my idea doesn't work." I can never have four straps. I can only have two straps because I looked down, first I thought, "Oh, I forgot the springs. I have all the springs in the reformer." I looked down, I have like one yellow spring. I'm like, "Oh my God, this is not gonna work." So then I cut the loop, loop went down and I'm really down. I was so excited because I did the four straps and I'm like, my moral was really high and then suddenly went down.

It's like the plane is crashing it's last 100 meters, right? And then I looked at the loops and I said, "What happens if I put the end of the rope?" So I tried, I laid down and I did it again. And my plane went, when it starts to go up, I was so happy, I did it, it is working. So you think that's small but again, I didn't give up, I kept trying different things. And that was the first inventing phase.

Once it's the inventing phase, you start to think, "Okay, who will do it? Will they do it? Will they listen to me? How am I gonna show it to them? Did they like it?

Did they not like it? There's lots of little things and also a lot of things that I didn't know. Sometimes you feel like you have a great idea and it is true, it's a great idea but it doesn't have enough profits. So big manufacturers who have big responsibilities and it costs a lot of money for them to put the new products seems that they're not interested. It's not a bad idea but it's just like, it's not visible to turn it to be profitable business or help peoples because also the consumer is not buying it, sometimes that makes sense.

They will say like, "Okay, that's too expensive or that's too cheap." So it's very difficult, complicated process. But reaching out who knows what they're doing and trusting them is really important, I think. Yeah and it's so satisfying I'm sure once everything actually does work out and you have that plane going back up, so it's very exciting. Oh yeah, that was great but it's never an easy journey. Like I said, it's been in the market- Yeah, it's never a straight line.

Exactly, a lot of people still is thinking like, "Okay, is this a good idea or is it not?" I even have ideas, I love it but they say, "My clients can not do this." Or like they have excuses, it's not their clients. There's many people doing it and clients usually do what do you tell them. And about the misconception, because you can have freedom of movement in the Konnector, people thinks Konnector is really advanced. Konnector is not advanced and it's letting you do the daily movement patterns that you already do, which is walking. We don't walk with both legs jumping, we are not bunnies or kangaroos, right?

So if you really think about it we teach them more advanced things by asking them bring both limbs down and up. But the single movement pattern is very familiar. We all do it all the time, every day. Yeah, definitely. We have a question actually from Sharon, she wants to know, "Will the Konnector work on the Balanced Body Clinical Reformer and how easy is it to convert?" Beautiful, so first, yes.

And I'm gonna make it easier for others who's listening. Unless you have Allegro 2 Reformer, which is the white metal reformer, Allegro 2 Reformer, Konnector works on everything, all of them. Sometimes you might have to make some little adjustments if you're reformer is a really old reformer but if it's not really old reformer and your shoulder rest is basically removable, it works in any reformer except Allegro 2. It is very easy, I don't know if in your clinical actually, it's one of the easiest one. You just take the metal risers and the Konnector comes already in the metal risers I believe.

So you just replace those and you add some pulleys underneath the carriage and we use existing holes on the carriage. So you can easily add with the screw without doing any drilling. Some reformers requires two holes to be drilled on the frame but that's it. Oh, so it's really easy to set up. And then once you have it set up you don't have to change it again.

You just leave it and then you can use it for everything. That's it, you don't have to. Can I tell you the story that I had? Yes. Yes, in London, I went to London POT, it was my second year.

And this teacher came and said, "Viktor, you changed my practice, you changed my life, my clients loves it, I love it. Konnector is amazing, thank you so much. I bought it last year when you were here and I've been teaching it one year, it's fantastic. But I wish it was easier to install and uninstall. I'm losing a lot of time during the session." And I said, "Excuse me, what do you mean?" She said, "I love reciprocal movement patterns.

I love doing things separately. But sometimes I wanna do my old exercises. So when I wanna do that, I uninstall Konnector and I put back the old reformers." And I said, "Oh, no, like, which type of exercises? Would you tell me?" I laid down on the reformer and she says like, "Abdominal, I mean like arms." I said, "Okay." I laid down, I took the straps and I started to do the arms together. "What else do you think?" She goes "Circles" and I started to do circle.

Then she went like this, "I am so crazy. What was I thinking?" And I said, "I don't know what you were thinking but it's okay, now you know it, please stop changing the Konnector in and out every session." So this shows us how much we see it one way. Sometimes we just think like, "Okay, this is for this and this is for that." And the Konnector opens that up, I always say this, we all had this probably, for the listeners and for you, I wanna ask a question. Did you ever lay down on your back and you have an idea, movement idea and you put the straps on your feet or on your arms and you start to move to see if it's gonna work or not? Yeah.

You've done it, we all did it. The magic with the Konnector, you move and the Konnector straps adjust your movement. You don't have to do like, is this gonna work out or not? No, you just move and the strap with you because when you pull, it takes the tension away from the other one because they are connected and it's one source. So it's quite magical the way I see it because I was always that person, can I do this, can I do this?

Oh no, oh no, it will be always one strap will be lose, one strap will be tight and I couldn't move. I'll be like, "Oh my God, it doesn't work." Now I'm just moving freely that knowing that straps is gonna adjust my movement pattern. Yeah, so it's like the equipment suggesting to your body rather than your body adjusting to the equipment, correct? Correct, correct. Or we didn't even mention the people with assymetry, we all have people with one short leg, one long leg or scoliosis, right?

Imagine what are we doing to them? What we are doing is we're saying by doing the straps evenly, your long side or this part of your body is gonna take most of the work and the other one's just gonna pretend it's doing it because technically they cannot apply the 50, 50 pressure to those straps, right? And then of course we're trying to adjust that but how accurate are we? Are we really accurate? Yeah but with the Konnector is automatically adjust and creates the environment that you can put 50, 50, you can actually have 50, 50 weight in both limbs and you don't have to worry about it.

And the best part about it, the client will be like, "Okay, straps on your hands" and then we'll take it. "This is a little shorter than this one, can you adjust that?" And you'll make the adjustment, "Is it better?" There go like, "A little bit more." So now with Konnector, you give it to them and they go like, "Oh, this is longer than this one." And I'm like, "Actually it's not the straps, it's you. So why don't you make sure that your limbs are even or in same level and they go like that." They're like, "Okay, what's next." I'm like, "Great." (laughing) That's amazing, I love that. Yeah, it fun, it's joking but it's fun. Yeah, so I wanna leave some time.

Can you show us a demonstration of how the Konnector works and some of the things that you can do on it? I'd love to see it. Beautiful, so if you're don't mind I'm gonna start with this. So I'm gonna show me how this became that. All right, so it's a real long band right here.

And there's loops not too loose, not too really small. You don't wanna lose the bands from your feet but also you don't wanna really squeeze your feet. So it will be blue toes. So it's right here, it's simple, nice and easy. Now from here I'm gonna lay down on my back, I'm gonna use the reformer as an mat.

I'm just gonna show you guys a couple of things. Let me put on my springs, here I go. So very basic things in here, I'm in all fours. From here we can start one of the most favorite and famous exercise of Joseph Pilates. So I will start, I will keep the legs now as is in the tabletop, I bring my hands down and in here, I'm connecting my legs with my arms, right?

And I'm applying, now there's a resistance in my arms and I'm gonna do hundreds but I'm gonna do twenties just because we are demonstrating. So from here, inhale two, three, four, five, exhale, two, three, four, five, inhale two, three, four, five, exhale, two, three, four, five. So that was the twenties, you could do the same thing. Let me see if I'm gonna be still in the frame. Yes, you could even do it this way.

Two, three, four, five, exhale, two, three, four, five, inhale, two, three, four, five, exhale, two, three, four, five and relax. It's a very basic concept, the idea is, again, like I mentioned to you, if you move one leg, do you see right now the resistance in my right arm changed because it's pulling it. So my arm has to decide to go with it or hold it or even move it away from it. But they know that their action is creating a different type of resistance in the band, right? And instead of doing unilateral my right arm is talking to my right leg.

I can simply cross the band. Now when I do this, you see now my right leg is talking to my left arm. I can hold it, I can go with it or I can go away from it. And also when I do away from it, now my right arm has to be holding his spot too instead of dragging with the left arm. Yeah, so there's creating a connection patterns, it's really fun and easy, there's freedom of movement.

The many type of work that you do. It's not just obviously for the hundreds, like for example, double leg stretch. I could do actually resist towards my knees while I'm pulling it and I can extend it out. So again, my arms and my legs are connected and this is the magic. Usually yes, we do pull our legs but it's very different when you start to feel that you can actually do the work with your limbs without pulling them and create that resistance on the hip flexors.

So it's quite fun, there's many, many different ways to use it. This is just a couple simple ideas that I wanted to show you with the band. And then I was doing many exercises like that. And then I said, "How can I bring this work that I'm doing to the reformer?" And the reformer came. So one thing I wanted to tell you also Konnector has also straps, it's called tri-loop.

And I'm gonna come a little closer this way. So this is regular tri-loop, I mean, double loop, I'm sorry. And what I did is I added a tri-loop. You just pull it out and it comes out right here. This is an extra loop.

Yeah, so now can you guess, what is that for Gia? So your foot doesn't slide out. Yes, so it was so important for me is to fix a problem of not using our ankle joint. So somehow because it was a design, I never believed, nobody believes into it but the design unfortunately was not abling us to do what we wanted to do for years. What did we do with our clients?

We basically work on the hip joint, on the knee joint. We said, these are really important part of our body but the ankle, don't worry just keep it pointed and just go up and down, don't move your ankle. I was refused to believe that is the most important joint in your work pattern I believe. A lot of problems happen if our ankles is not moving properly. So then I start to ask people, flex and point your feet.

So they will point down and they will flex up. Do you see my feet pointed? Yeah, that's what happens to me, especially if people have flat feet or my feet are small too so I have problems with my feet sliding out. And they feel like, oh great, I'm flexing my foot. You're not really flexing your foot, you're still in plantar flection of the ankle but your toes are flexing.

The reason is that if I do fully, here I go, I'm gonna do fully, bye-bye strap, there's no way strap and stay there. So now I lost it just because I wanted to move full range of motion with my ankle to do this. Or how about this one? Crowd favorite, when you do circles you start to rotate your toes or go in because they don't feel secure and they don't wanna lose the strap. So they do funny things with their feet.

Now let's open the tri-loop. I'm gonna just open this tri-loop again and I'm gonna place it on my foot. Same thing on the other side. You guys ready? Ta-da, now I can do flex, I can even try to lose it, it's not going anywhere.

I can do full range of motion movement going up and down . In circles I can do flex, I can do pointed. I can do one flex, one pointed if I wanna do, it's a freedom of the movement. That's amazing, is the tri-loop, is that adjustable depending on the size of the foot? To fix that problem what did we do is, I don't know if you can see it here.

There is a Velcro piece here. So what do you do is you open the Velcro piece like that. Once the Velcro piece is opened up, if I have a really small feet, I can put the tri-loop and then I can choke the strap on top right here with that Velcro. Yeah now, I mean, I cannot even take without opening that Velcro. Right now it's locked on my feet, can you see it?

Should I angle it differently my foot? No, that's clear, yeah, you thought of everything. That's wonderful. Yes, I did. This is the best part about it.

When you come up with the product and start to use with your clients, what did I tell you in our talk in the beginning? When we have a problem, I didn't just say, that's a problem, let it go. I tried to find a solutions and maybe I didn't find everything a solution but pretty most everything that I encountered during me teaching to my clients I was able to address it. So now with this, ta-da, here we go. Now, what else should we do?

I can stay here and I can just move one leg down and one leg up. So now I'm working with eccentricly and concentricly with my right leg. And my left leg is isometric contraction but it's little different. It is dynamic isometric because when I press my right leg down this gets heavier. So I really have to resist that.

And then when I go up, it gets lighter. So I have to readjust. If I don't really pay attention to my left leg, when I press my right the left will be pulled up. Do you see the difference? So it's a dynamic movement pattern.

So I can do single leg and the best thing about it, I can decide where to hold the other one. Do I hold them up? Do I hold them bent? Do I hold it external rotation? You could do anything you wanted to do.

And the straps will adjust you. Then I can do alternating one down, one up and then I could do reciprocal. And again, freedom of movement. The ankles, don't forget that I could move them. And this reciprocal has two different ways to move.

I can do hover mode, which is I'm not moving the carriage. My legs coordinates the movement together or I could move them and I could think more range of motion and the flexibility. So many options, that's so cool. Yeah and I'm just showing straight leg but obviously you could a bicycling, you could do a marching. Yeah, this is crowd favorite, right?

(laughing) People love any kind of circle. Just cycling the legs because you could do basically circles, same direction. You can reverse them or you can do one leg down circle, one leg up circle and that creates that helicopter movement pattern or figure eight. So this was fantastic, I did this and the arm same thing. It was amazing, I love it.

But then I was like full body, full body, we don't have a full body, what am I gonna do? So voila, boom. Now this gray straps, we designed it, we put them gray. So it's optional, it's like extra straps. If we need only two straps we use the black ones.

And the gray ones is 50% lighter than the black ones because of the pulley system. So it works perfectly for the arms, arms doesn't get tired because legs are bigger muscle groups and arms are small. So this has a tri-loop too and how we can use the tri-loop now. I can use it because it's thinner, I can hold it with my hands actually. If the thick straps was bothering the client's hands because sometimes the thumb gets painful because of the thickness of the strap.

So they complain you could do it this way or I even have a better one. I actually go through the big loop and hold the gray strap and as you've seen it here the black part of the strap is on my wrist joint. So now we don't have any problems in my wrist, I can actually assist that or the movement pattern when people break their wrists backwards like that now you can cue them just to press the top strap down and it aligns the correct alignment. Yeah, it probably also gives them a little more feedback so that they know when they're not in alignment with their wrist too. Exactly, when they feel they don't feel any weight in their hand, they go like, "Oh, oh, okay, I'm doing it this again, I shouldn't do this.

I don't wanna do this. So I have to have some weight" and they push it down. That's wonderful. So here is the Konnector, it is one rope pulley system that moves arms. It connects the arms and legs through the torso, right?

Let's talk about core activation. When you do this you do not even ask your clients, engage your lap, engage your core because they're connected. I mean, if this is not here, this two cannot move together. It is automatic feedback, automatic connection between the limbs. You could do all four limbs at a time, you could do three limbs at a time.

So I'm just holding the left, now I'm holding the right arm. Now I'm holding the left leg, now moving the right leg. So you could move three limbs at a time, you could move two limbs at a time, just arms or just legs. Right arm, right leg, left arm, left leg, unilateral. Right arm, left leg, contralateral.

Or you could move single limb at a time, just the right arm, just the left arm, just the right... Do you see the movement in my legs when I was moving my one arm? It kind of goes up and down. This is active guys, I am not just chilling and relaxing. The minute I move the right, my body starts to react.

They go like, "Ooh, things changing, why don't we react to it?" It's fantastic, it's really creative. I mean, it's very versatile and there's a lot of feedback. Yes, coordination is a part of the feedback, right? And then we can move towards each other and away from each other, we talked about it. They could do circles together, they could reverse it or they could do towards each other.

So the legs is gonna do up circle, arms is gonna do down circle and they meet in the center or you could reverse it. That's so great. I have a couple of questions here from Mark actually about this. He wanted to know, "Is there an easy way to understand how spring colors work compared to the original when you use only the black straps or only the gray straps or all four?" Great question, Mark. The black straps acts exactly regular reformer as long as the strap length is same.

Does that make sense? So the black ones exactly the same. So if I was doing this two red, I still feel two red. And this is the perfect explain to you guys. Can you see where my carriage is?

My carriage basically, let's do it from the bottom. My carriage ends right here. So trying to remember where my carriage is. Now when I take the gray straps and pull them down, do you see my carriage went a little farther up? So what is that gonna translate?

When you use four straps it is gonna be a little heavier than the normal springs you use. So if you're using two reds, maybe you could do all four straps with one red, one blue to test. When it feels light, you'll make it heavy again. But it's safer when you do all fours, use little lighter not too much. Yeah and then he also asked, "Would you ever only use the gray straps?" One of the biggest rule, I have, never, because people start to use only gray strap to make things lighter.

Like they try the black and they say, "Oh, this is heavy, let me do the gray." So that's not a reason. If this is heavy two straps, you change the springs. But I also say there's always exception for the rules we create. So there is some exceptions you use it. For example, I like to demonstrate this, in a regular reformer I am gonna put a one red spring there and I'm gonna take my gray straps and do you guys remember I said, it is acting exactly the same as regular reformer.

I'm gonna decide to do some arm work in front of my reformer. Look at this, my whole reformer is sliding, can you guys see? This is not happening, right? And what is it? If I'm here, I'm gonna kill myself to hold this.

Forget about exercising, let's go back. So check this out, with Konnector your reformer becomes actually one of Joseph Pilates inventions, which it was an armchair, right? So I'll come up here, I can adjust my foot bar. If I want to this way, I'm gonna sit here and let's see, I'm still in the frame, I'm gonna make a little bit of adjustments, I'm gonna push this backwards, here I go, beautiful. Now I have that Pilates armchair.

I can use all the repertoire that I could do and the best part about it. Once again, those springs has little bit fault, which will bottom out. If you bring your movement patterns backwards. And here there's no bottoming out. I can even reach all the way back and the best thing when I move this arm, do you see my body rotates too because it's connected to the left one.

So once again, full body movement and they are actually connected to each other to do anything that I wanna do. Any Joseph Pilates's repertoire that we are familiar. You could do just the way he taught or you could start to change it. Let's do one at a time, right? Let's do reciprocal, right?

All the work that we know and we love in standing spring work on the trap table. Now it's available for you. You could do everything that you want or you know. With Konnector it becomes basically more versatile and enables you to do exercises that you already know in the trapeze stable and suddenly you have it in your reformer. That's so cool.

Yeah, this is really cool, I love it. People do things like you can put a box there in front of your reformer long box or short box. And if you have clients with specialty needs like pregnancy, vertigo, balance problems, can you see now how I can use that? I can put a long box here, pretend I am on the long box and I can do all my repertoire, everything that I know, I can kneel on the long box and I can do everything that I know in non-moving surface. And when the client feels more secure and able, you can tell them, "Okay, you did a great job.

Now I'm gonna move you to the moving carriage because you are now advanced." That's so great. We have time for one more question from Mark. "When do you use the chops or he said the clamps." He's not sure what to call them, "To clip off the rope on both sides?" You don't, you have no reason, why do you have a reason? Would you like your clients to able to cheat or use the fixation points on the rope? That's the only reason.

So yeah, that's the way I'm looking at it. So there is a way you can literally lock him so it will not move anymore. But again, the only reason you will do that, if you want one rope to be pulled and the other one to be loose. And for me that's basically getting rid of this integration and making sure both arms is doing the exact same work. Great, my last question for you Viktor is if someone wants to learn more about the Konnector or even the Konnect Method, where can they find you?

In my website, konnectmethod.com. And when they go to konnectmethod.com, I do have trainings and upcoming trainings. And if they're really wanna hear back from me as well when they go to my website, if they scroll all the way down and submit their email, I will keep them updated with upcoming workshops and the trainings. That's so great, thank you so much, Viktor for sharing this information and giving us this wonderful demonstration, it's really wonderful to learn more about the Konnector and the Konnect Method. And thank you everyone for attending.

We'll see you next time. (upbeat music)