Class #3992

Be Present Mat

30 min - Class
252 likes

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Learn how to place the shoulders in relation to the head and neck with this quick class by Dana Santi. She uses ideas from her tutorial on Head and Neck Positioning to show how the point of stability differs in men and women. She teaches the full Mat repertoire, including one to two repetitions of each exercise so you can stay present and focused throughout the class.
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Hi, I am Dana Santi. And today I am joined by my good friend Frankie Zido and we are going to um, kind of put together, uh, from the tutorial that we just did about the differences between men and women and their points of stability. Um, the male's point of stability being their shoulders and their upper body and the women's being our hips and how a lot of this work has to um, is incredibly important for women because men have that wide range and you know, women tend to be more narrow up top. Um, so through the positions of where are the shoulders and the arms are and in correlation with the head and the neck. Um, so we're going to do a full match but maybe um, one or two reps of each thing cause we are going to try very hard to do it very, very well. Okay, so let's start with the hundred lie back down and bring the arms over the head. Okay, take a breath, you're going to exhale and now inhale, lift up and now your shoulder blade, stay down, pump and breathe. And I want the arms to be at the same angle as the legs. And your eyes just look towards your toes.

And so now we can stretch through the waist to lower the legs. And we're trying to keep the chin to the chest. All the while working our shoulder blades wide in a way from our spine. And now from here, exhale. And we're going to release now.

Roll up. So press your feet in. We're going to try hard, Frankie not to move our feet. Arms to the ceiling, shoulder blades wide. Now you're going to turn the tops of your ears forward. Chin to chest. And if the legs start to move, we've got a length and more in the spine. Lengthen. Lengthen, lengthen. Keep the chin to the chest. Shoulders wide. Now unravel and go back down and try to keep the feet where they are.

Lengthen and lengthen. I've got a length and more through my waist so my feet don't come with me and home. Okay, try that one more time. So we set ourselves up for success and chin to the shoulder blades wide and going up and lengthen. Lengthen, lengthen. Chin to the chest, shoulder blades wide, and then right back down and lengthen through. How are you doing is good as me and home. Okay, roll over. So arms at your sides. Let's get the blades wide again. Okay.

And I want you to bring the legs up and now go over, but press into your arms. Press into right behind your ears, right? The tips of the ears. Open the legs very wide. And now roll down the spine. Press the arms in. Keep the blades wide.

Don't let the arms and the shoulders and the head move. Bring the legs together. Now reverse it Frankie, and go over. Why? [inaudible] press into the upper body and then bring the legs together and roll down. Roll down and roll down from here.

Your left leg goes down. Okay. Pull the toes on this bottom leg. Pull the toes backwards. Push the ball the foot forward. We know that from our feet. Now cross the leg over, but do not let the shoulders lift. Okay? Bring it around and home. Do that again.

Cross it over and around and home. Now the other way around. And lift the hip up. Go ahead and lift it up Frankie and home and again around lift the hip. Keep the blades down and home. Switch legs. Okay, work the blades wide and now cross it over, around, and home. That's it. Lift the hip and over, keeping the blades and home.

Other way around and over and up and around and over and home. Okay, sit yourself up now. Rolling like a ball. So grab your hand. Okay, from here, chin to the chest. Okay, we're going to keep the size close to the chest from from from URMs. And now roll backwards. Inhale, exhale as you come up, okay, and again, and try not to let the head pull away. Keep that chin to the chest. Lie back down.

Pull the right knee in and pull one, switch one and two. Switch to keeping the chin to the chest. We're going to take the arms forward. Press them firmly into the side of your body. Inhale and exhale.

Now inhale, don't let your head fall back right as your legs go out. Inhale, work the blades wide as you press firmly in and exhale home. Okay. Sitting up spine, stretch forward. So again, legs are going to be wider than normal. Okay. From here, take the hands, press them down. Nice and firm.

And I just want you to pull the blades together. And from here, chin to the chest. Suck your guts in and exhale as you go forward. Exhale, keep the blades together. Exhale, exhale, exhale and come back home. And again, inhale. And now exhale, chin down.

Keep the blades together. Press from into your hands, into your arms. Keep them, keep 'em. Keep 'em and come back and home. Okay, open leg rocker. So pull back and we're going to go back to where we can kind of keep these legs up and we're going to press our hands into the legs. So push from from here, chin to the chest and roll back.

Bring the legs back further, further, further, come back up and press the legs into your hands. And inhale super hard. Now press the legs into your hands as you come up and home legs together and corkscrew. So again, press firm. Take your legs over the head. Okay. Now, all right, behind your ears, right, cause you don't want to push into your neck this way, right? You've got to brace your head. And from here, take the legs, go down towards the right side of the spine, press the arms, don't let the shoulders lift, okay, come around and now go over key the back and the shoulders present and go to the left press, press, press.

Keep that right side down and over and home. Okay, come on up and saw. So again, legs wide, arms out. Okay, this one's unique because I want us to pull the blades together and kind of put our chest out and now we're going to try to twist as far as we can, but what happens is if we're twisting, right, this left side wants to just release, so I've got to keep pulling that blade in and putting that part of my chest out. Okay? From here we're going to flip the back hand and this blade stays in.

Now we're going to take this arm towards our foot. This blade goes wide. Drop the head down and stretch. Lift the arm higher in the back, higher in the back, and come up. Okay. Chest out blades together. Now you're going to twist, see where you go to. Okay. And your goal is to get a little further at some point. And from here, flip the back, hand this blade in this blade out.

Drop the head and stretch. Lift the arm higher. Stretch, stretch, and come up and center. Okay, close the legs. Roll over onto your stomach. And now we're going to go for the Swan, but before we do it, let's just do a little [inaudible] bit of a press up. So legs are together. Okay. From here we're going to start lifting from the tips of the ears, lifting the chin and keep lifting. Keep lifting, keep lifting so it doesn't stop moving the whole time and come back all the way through and home.

So now we're going to try to lift that and let's do maybe two swans with our arms out to the sides. So lifting up [inaudible], lift, lift, lift, and keep the head thrown back Frankie. So keep the ears back. Ready and go and release. Okay. Sit back onto your heels and go back out. Okay. Bring the arms in front of you and now both positions correct.

So go back to if you want to go there, bring the elbows in front of your shoulders though. [inaudible] more there. Okay. From here, press from, there you go. Rest your fists a bit. Okay, lift. Now lift your legs, lift both of the legs off. Make your knees, face the mat. And from here, kick the legs. Just kick once and switch and once and switch. Don't even do two kicks. Just do one and switch and switch and switch and switch and switch and switch and switch and release. Okay. Place your chin down right on the chin. And now hands behind. Now instead of taking the elbows down, okay, lift the elbows up. Now from here, lift your thighs. Okay, you're going to bend your knees.

Keep the thighs lifted and now lengthen the legs. Lift from the head. Lift, lift, lift and keep the thighs lifted. Chin down and up. And one more and down. Keep the elbows open and up and release. Okay, sit back and flip yourself over. Okay. Neck pull.

So take your hands, classroom together, even the thumbs. Okay. Now I'm going to keep the elbows behind me like I just had them in the previous exercise. So from here, and what does it do? It kind of makes your chest go out. Okay, that's okay because we're drawing the abdomen in. Bring the chin to the chest and coming up and over here, the elbows behind.

Now come back down. You just come straight back. Keep the elbows back. Keep the elbows back. Keep the elbows back and home. One more. Ready and up and over. That's it. And elbows back. Bring it back. Bring it back.

Bring it back and release. Okay. Scissors. So bring yourself up now take the hands. Just cut behind your hips. There you go. All right. Keep your back real strong.

Get your shoulders in your arms strong. And now switch the legs and switch the legs and try to keep the back from moving. Keep it real still. And switch and switch. Switch and bicycle. Forward one and two. And just do one more three and come on down to your shoulder bridge. Okay. So from here, grasp your waist. Press your feet from into the ground. Take the right leg up.

Now bring it up. Now thrust your chest higher as the leg goes down and up. Keep the foot from and switch and up and down and up. Lift and Elise. K spine. Twist, arms out.

So here we go. Keep it back. Okay, inhale. Now you twist. Keep both blades back, so don't let that left one leave. Bring the chin to your shoulder just to the shoulder and then center and other side and keep it. Chin to the shoulder and home and release. Okay, Jack knife.

So from again with the upper body, bring the legs up to 90 now from here we're going to come up about five inches. Hold it now, snap up from there. Okay, lower down, back to the five and then home. And one more press from and a little up and then a lot. And then a little and home. Okay.

Lay for sidekicks. So sidekicks, I want your hands to be exactly what we just did for neck pole. So that elbow is going to go behind you, your feet come forward. All right? So what happens is the blades right are together. So that's going to mean the chest goes out, okay?

Take the leg to the front and now bring it back a little and kick it forward again. [inaudible] and now to the back, back and back and to the front and forward and forward. That's it. Two to the back. Ready and back and back. And again, forward chest is out, forward and back and back and home, okay? To the other side. So flip around that way. Hands behind. Okay. Make sure that that bottom elbow goes back. And now from here, top leg up and forward and forward and back and back and forward and forward and back and back and forward and forward and back and back and release.

Okay. Sit yourself up. Swing your legs to the front again and now teaser. So from here, press the arms and I want you to roll back and let's go to about our blades. Okay, hit the blades. Now from here, you're going to inhale and bring both parts of your body together, okay? And going down to the blades and come back up and down to the blades and come back up and home. Okay. Hip circles. Take the arms wide and bring your fingers back. Pay, press into the ground, right. Lift the legs up. And now from here, keep the chest in and circle and around and the other way and circle and home.

Hey, swimming, rollover. Bring the arms in front of you. And now I want you to lift your head in your chest first and swim. Inhale, keep the head back. Exhale and release. Okay, sit back and now into our leg. Pull front. So all the toes on [inaudible] shoulders are going to go wide. So in this position now keep the head just long from here.

Lift the right leg up and get your shoulder blades wide and come down. Lift the left foot and bring it home. Okay, flip yourself over now. Hand side. Okay, blades go wide again and going up and we'll just keep the head straight. Lift the leg up and come down.

And up and come down and release sidekicks. So take your right hand down the left hand. I want to go open. So one blades working wide and one's working in. Okay. Lay into your right hip, Frankie. So go, yes, go that way. And now from here, just swing the leg forward and back.

Forward and back and forward and back and forward and back. And switch sides. So now you're going to kind of go into that arm. Okay, that blade is wide. This blade is clothed. There you go.

And going forward and back and forward and back and forward and back and release. Okay, stay facing this way. Let's do your side bend. So that's gonna kind of be a little the same thing. So instead of thinking up, I want us to go out, okay. And instead of this arm going here, I'm going to have it open here. Okay? Yes. Press into the feet and now widen the blade.

Get it ready, and go over, over, over, over. Now put the arm down at your side. Let your chin go to the shoulder, the right one, and go down to the calf. And come back up and release over to the other side. All right, ready? Press the feet in.

We're going to go over and over. That's it right now. Arm goes down. Chin to the shoulder and going down and up and release. Yes. Okay. Cross the right leg over the left. Boomerang. So boomerang, we're going to just keep our arms back, right.

So from here we're going to mimic exactly what we did in the saw here. Rollback legs over. Press from open close. Now come on up and from here, bring it back and home. One more. I'm going back and switch and up and bring it back and home seal.

So in and around. Put the soles of the feet together. Now press in to your, uhm, press your arms into your legs, your legs, into your arms. Okay, from here, chin down. Go back. No clapping. Come up now. Clap two times here. One, two, go back. No claps and come up. One, two.

Now cross the legs and hold. Okay. Bring him real close to you. Drop the chin. Now you're going to go backwards. Don't switch. Your legs come up. Stay as tight as you can. And now go over and going back. Ready from upper body.

Keep it in and keep it in and home. Okay, flip over. Rocking. So think of rocking like a rocking chair, right? So one part goes down and the other part comes up. Okay, take, lift your head.

Now try to bring the blades wide head back and from here, lift the thighs and drop your chin down a little. Don't drop it right. And then up and down and up. Keep the head thrown back and release. Okay, sit back and now you're balanced control. Take yourself back. Legs. Come over.

Hey, hands to one ankle. Lift that other leg as high as you can. And with control, switch and change. And with control, switch and change and switch and change and release. Stand yourself up and um, uh, pushups. So press from okay, arms up to the ceiling. Now pull the blades wide.

Okay. Again, press those feet firm and just drop your head and go down and put your hands on the mat. Okay, hold onto that wide. Press into your feet. Press into your hands and walk yourself out. One, two, three, four. Now the elbows go in, the blades go wide and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up. Walk it in. Hey, plant the feet. Plant the hands, and now from here and one piece, lift yourself up and home and we are done. Hot. Damn.

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Comments

2 people like this.
Just when i'm trying to work on shoulder connections Dana pops up! Thank you for this class, hope to see you in september again Dana at Amy's studio in portsmouth x  
Sylvia S
1 person likes this.
Nothing new 
3 people like this.
So much great information to take in on this class.  I've been a practitioner for 16 years (and a teacher) and Dana's approach here brings it back to Joe's "Return To Life" work. 
I thought for neck health when doing most abdominal work the neck should be long with chin slightly tucked, so as to engage the deep cervical flexors not the scalenes. Are there two schools of thought on this? Just curious the rational for having the neck so flexed. Thank you.
4 people like this.
I loved the class but would have preferred if it was 60 mins instead. Felt i was scrambling to get into position too much. 
2 people like this.
Not at all impressed   ............... whats new>
1 person likes this.
Loved this - as always Dana amazing cueing thank you.
1 person likes this.
Enjoyed the pace and felt  it to be thorough
Benjamin Degenhardt
Lo-lo-lovely to work out with you both! xoxoxo
1 person likes this.
Super Class Totally enjoyed it and Great Cues!
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