- Little stretch here.
This is a, oh you hear that?
That was crazy!
Hi, my name is Scout Forsythe
I'm a professional ballerina with American Ballet Theater.
And today I'm going to take you through
every exercise I do in a day.
[waves crashing]
I'm in California right now quarantining,
and I'm not dancing my usual seven hours
a day and performing at night.
So right now I got to keep my body moving
and I got to keep exercising
just to help my body and my mental health
stay in peak condition.
[orchestral music]
I wake up usually around 6:30 AM.
It's a little early, but my eyes just open.
So I wake up, kind of do my little like,
oh let's get out of bed movement
and then I roll my mat out
and that's when I get down and do my cat cows
and just kinda like some spinal flection
and like nice feel-good stretches.
Oh, it's like a big juicy yawn.
[orchestral music]
So every morning at 7:30,
my really good friend Libby, she's doing a Rise and Radiate
Kundalini class on Instagram Live,
doing it first thing in the morning allows you to like,
get the energy moving, get the blood flowing,
get the breath going.
Kundalini has helped me with my awareness of breath
and my endurance of breath.
It's a lot more breath work
than it is just specifically movement and like chanting.
For me the breath work is really important
because as a dancer, like I need strong lungs.
Like that's how you keep your stamina up.
That's how you know how to rest and recover.
If I'm on stage performing a ballet
and I'm on stage for 30 minutes,
like I need to know when I can take that breath
and not be standing over the side, like panting,
which is just using more energy.
I can take that moment of like,
okay, slow down the breath, slow down the heart rate
and that's my little rest and recover,
reload and go back into dancing.
So this has helped my lung capacity so much.
That is my favorite Karea that we do,
it's so good for opening up the heart channel
and you flick out the frustration
and you bring in the strength,
but it's just my favorite one.
I feel like it wakes me up for the best
and it gets my heart open and I just, I come out of that
always with a big smile on my face.
As a dancer, having an open chest
like that is what we train from as little kids.
Not only does that help with the posture and the movement,
it's also a visual thing.
You see a dancer doing this or that
it frees the arms to be open and back.
And when this is all lifted,
your legs have a more of like
an effortless lightness about them.
The reason I think dancers like yoga so much
is because it's very much about like,
let's bring everything back in.
Let's get into proper alignment.
Yoga is like a good reset for dancers.
[orchestral music]
I do Kundalini for an hour
and at this time it's around 8:30
and this is when I go into like a quick 10 minute,
like core pilates fire up.
And I love Cassey Ho Blogilates on YouTube
She's my favorite, I have been doing her videos
for maybe like two years now.
15 Minutes?
I'm feelin' a 10 minute vibe.
I hated it pilates for the longest time.
And then I got injured and that really sucked.
And I started to kind of get into like,
uch, I should probably get my core strong.
And now I'm obsessed with it.
Pilates is like a core activation
integrating the inner line of your body
and keeping it strong.
Until I realized and actually felt it in my body,
I didn't like fully grasp the concept of like
having a strong core helps you as a dancer.
If you have your core strong,
all of a sudden your chest is lifted
and things become easier.
And I swear, I started doing pilates
and I have turned better than I ever have in my entire life.
I can knock off six, seven, eight pirouettes
like on a dime, no problem.
But I swear it's from pilates
and it's getting a stronger core
because I'm able to hold myself on the center.
I have more control of where my weight is going.
I used to have to really work for that.
For me, pilates and the core activation exercises
that are an absolute must and really good for like
crossovering into dance.
Planks, awesome.
Lower AB exercises specifically target areas that
your turnout comes from that, internal external rotation.
And so I've noticed like when I do
a lot of lower AB exercises
and I've gotten that way more stronger,
like I feel more comfortable in holding the turnout
and not just like forcing it to happen.
Ugh.
[heavy breathing]
It's about like 8:40, 8:45-ish
and I usually get up like take a little break,
figure out like what's going to happen throughout that day.
And then I come back to my mat
and that's when they go into just like really
basic dance oriented stretch.
[orchestral music]
I usually stretch for maybe 20, 25 ish minutes.
My stretching routine it does vary depending on
what I did the day before.
But some of the ones that I absolutely
need to do are hip openers, you know, in California,
we're driving a lot and I'm sitting a lot.
So I notice like my hip flexors
start to get a little more crunchy.
Something as simple as just lunging
and allowing that to release forward,
getting down on your hands when
you're lunging is really good,
going into the cross-legged bending forward.
I have really tight, outer hips, which is pretty funny.
Like I can barely sit crisscross,
yeah that's about it.
That's as far as I can go [laughs].
And then also to any kind of like chest opener
where it's just like something as simple
as like going up to the wall,
take your arm, push it against it
and you're going to just kind of step
and work your way forward.
And this opens up the chest
and this is so nice for just breathing and relaxing
and you can just move your head back and forth.
And so working on those exercises
and the stretches that are the ones who don't like to do,
those are probably the ones that you should be doing.
So after I'm done stretching,
I grab my foam roller ball.
And I have this guy because it's got a little divot
it's perfect for your spinal cord
and just opening up the back from tightness, from sitting.
Being a dancer, even though I'm like professional,
I've been doing this for a long time now.
I still get sore.
I'll wake up in the morning like,
oh, these calves are tight.
So the foam roller just really helps with releasing that
like tight muscle and like that soreness that you've got.
I do some chest opener movements on it
and I'm just as I'm rolling and it just feel good.
Like, this is just like my nice little like morning massage.
So next I switch over to a pretty household object.
The tennis ball.
I've try so many foam rollers out there,
I always end up going back to the tennis ball,
it's the perfect amount of strength, but it's also soft
and it just, it molds to your area, it's the perfect size.
So stretching and rolling takes about 20 to 30 minutes
and by this time, like I'm ready to go to dance
and this is when I get in my car and head to the studio.
[orchestral music]
Currently I take class either five or six times a week.
I'm really fortunate that even though we're quarantining,
my local studio is allowing me to go in
and take class in the small room by myself.
When I get to the studio,
I get my computer out and get on zoom
with my coach Sharla, she's really rad.
Ballet class is very structured.
So you start at bar.
First thing you do at the ballet class
is something as simple as just like
bending and straightening the legs, that is it.
And it sounds kind of silly,
that translates into jumping later
and we're coming down from a jump.
What are you doing?
You're landing on the bent leg
and then you straighten out of it
to go in the next movement.
Then you move it quicker.
Then you move it more than you move it fast
and then you live it higher.
And all that translates into like,
the last thing you do in ballet is like a big jump
and you're already ready
because you know how to land.
So during quarantine right now,
I am kind of challenging myself to get my adagio higher.
, I can get my leg up there,
but to like sustain it
or to move it from a position to another position
is not my strongest point.
So I've been working on that.
I've been working on arabesques and petit allegro
because I have the space right now to do small jumps.
It's been fun to kind of challenge myself in that way.
So ballet class is usually an hour and a half,
and then after I'm done dancing,
this is when I go home,
I take a little rest, eat food,
and I'm a very active person.
So when I get done dancing, if the weather's good,
the wind's not on it,
I'm going to the beach and I'm going to go surf.
[orchestral music]
I always had surfed, like when I was younger,
I grew up in Southern California,
like right next to the beach.
So surfed a little bit here and there
kinda stopped during my teenage years.
But my girlfriend and I kind of made a pact
about four years ago, we were like,
we're going to learn how to surf,
we're going to really surf.
Her and I've been going out.
and now it's at the point where I'm like, yeah, I surf.
I'm excited to go surfing, yay!
[orchestral music]
So since I started surfing, I've noticed just for me,
like balancing has improved a lot.
I feel more comfortable throwing myself
one way and then going the other,
I have a little bit more awareness of like
going with the flow,
'cause I can't control what's happening next on the wave.
And you just kind of have to go with it.
For dancing if you're like hitting a balance
or doing a turn or even just like putting your leg up,
you're not just putting it up there and staying.
You're constantly moving.
I'm not just standing up there.
My body is constantly readjusting.
There are these little quick twitch muscles
and it may look like I'm not doing anything,
but there is something always firing
on all cylinders to keep my body in that balance.
And so when I'm surfing, you know,
you're on a board that's on like a liquid surface.
So it's really unstable and surfing helps
with those quick twitch muscles too,
because you're constantly making sure
you're standing on the board and you're going down the line.
Surfing is so fun,
there is no mirror anywhere out there.
So for me, I'm never worried about like
what I'm looking like.
It's so much more of just like this feeling of flow
and fun and like effortlessness.
And I mean, it is a total body workout.
I've noticed my arms are getting a little bit stronger
and you're not laying flat in the board
like you're lifted up a little bit.
So my back has gotten stronger.
Okay, so I just got done surfing
and I'm going to go home, rest up a little bit
and then I'm going to go for a bike ride.
[orchestral music]
Bike riding is fun, it's easy, it's really low impact.
You're not doing much except for just pedaling around.
[orchestral music]
So, my bike ride, I'm done by like whenever the sunset is
so I'm usually home by 7:50ish.
I'm exhausted by this point, I've been up since 6:30.
I go home, do my normal nighttime routine
and then I pull out my yoga mat one more time.
[soft music]
This yoga that I do at night, like a little Vinyasa,
this is like so specifically just for me
and like myself and what I need to do
for my body to calm down.
This is definitely more of like a mental wind down.
I'm kind of sitting in one position, nodding off basically.
But I don't have a structure to this flow at all.
Okay, let's just like take deep breaths.
Do really flow easy, low impact movement.
It's so simple and so easy
and it could be something as simple
as just like bending forward and just hanging out there
for like a little bit longer than normal.
As simple as that very basic 101,
like this feels good.
It's really usually just a simple,
like five, 10 minutes of just like, breath.
So know this seems like a lot of stuff
and there's definitely somebody that's gonna look at me
and be like, this chick's nuts,
but remember I dance in New York from 10 AM to seven PM
at night with an hour break.
I absolutely take a rest day.
It's absolutely necessary, especially as an athlete.
You can't just keep driving the car.
Like you have to do the oil changes.
It's also just a safety thing.
You gotta rest and recover and the exercises
and everything I'm doing, I'm not doing it
because I'm like, I need to stay in shape,
I need to look a certain way.
Like I love dancing.
I love the way my body feels when I'm dancing.
I love doing these exercises.
Yeah, they're hard sometimes,
but I know I'm going to feel so much better afterwards.
For me, this is very normal to keep my body
in this movement, I have worked my whole life
to get to this point so like,
of course I'm going to sustain this when I'm done,
it's probably like nine or 10 o'clock at night,
I'm ready to go to sleep
and wake up and do the whole thing the next day
and that's just because it's a gift for
me to be able to do that.
Like I don't take my movement
and everything I do for granted.
And I hope you guys really enjoyed this video.
It was really fun to talk about this
because it's not something that I talk about too much,
but yeah, let's see what happens next time.