Jessica Smith's Plain Dealing

YouTuber Jessica Smith is the new fitness maven in my life. Her appeal is so straightforward yet sneaky I find myself constructing all sorts of tortured descriptors like "distinctively bland" or "normcore fabulosity" to explain her non-mystique. She has the blank, gentle directness of a good therapist, combined with a wellspring of interesting exercises that you won't find in other workouts. She's got the three Cs of effective presentation, a thing I just made up: competent, confident, and casual. Jessica doesn't go for fancy locations or kewl workout clothes or high-polish production—she's typically in her living room (like you, the viewer), filming on her laptop—but her workouts challenge you in perfect doses, and together with her no-pressure motivational style, it all adds up to an addictive home-workout experience. 

Working out with Jessica is like working out at a friend's place. Her dog, Peanut, is usually hanging out with a bone or napping; she wakes up near the end of the workout to lick her sweat. You wouldn't think it's adorable every time, but it absolutely is. Peanut is a chubby little nugget of dog delight, and I will watch her sniff the door or stare off into space any old time. 

Jessica shapes her workouts with real intention and delivers fully conceptualized, well-structured videos. Take, for example, the "Low Impact 'Quiet' Cardio 30-Minute Workout" above: it manages to be truly low-impact (no shoes needed) while making good on the promise of 30 minutes of cardio. She has us do "quiet" squat-jumps, by which she means focusing on a controlled jump all the way through the legs and feet on the way up and down. That kind of attention to detail is hard to find outside of a ballet class. I did "'Quiet' Cardio" on a low-energy day, and, like many of her videos, it gently sucked me in, pushed me to do well, and left me feeling like I'd gone on a nice long run. 

Her exercises: they're dank. (Yep, dank. It's 2002.) Jessica's choreographic vocabulary is truly impressive. Her moves are built on basics—squats, lunges, pliés, jumps, arm movements, yoga poses, floor exercises—but she always adds some sort of twist. She might have you do a curtsy lunge and then hinge at the waist while doing a tricep curl. Or she'll add wide arm circles to a leg-lift series, so that you're working upper and lower halves in new and different ways. If you're into body meridians and that kind of whole-body energy circuit–type thing, you'll love her.

In fact, Jessica's are the only workouts I've encountered that approximate "Rhythmics" levels of innovation and fluidity in the choreography. She and "Rhythmics" are about the only home workouts I do anymore, the latter for that vintage/femme/euro vibe and Jessica for no-frills, American-girl body maintenance.

And I mean "American girl" in the historical, New England sense (though she lives in Florida): Jessica is a walking-in-place embodiment of favorite Puritan girl's names—Verity, Prudence, Amity, Felicity, Tenacious. Industrious and a bit modest—no booty shorts or heaps o' cleavage; no close-ups except for in her Q&As, where she fights the good fight dispelling myths about diet pills and toxin cleanses—Jessica is refreshingly, admirably basic. She's the friend who's always fine to eat at whatever restaurant, even as you change your mind four times. She's the officemate who never talks shit about anyone and is pleasant to talk to at lunch but equally fine not talking. And, as my best friend put it, "More than any other workout-video person, it feels like she's in the room with you, watching you and knowing what to say and when."

She also has a huge line of walking-workout videos, but I haven't done any of those. I've skimmed through a couple, and they seem suited to both beginners and anyone who wants some cardio without having to go outside. I've enjoyed all of her ballet titles, her HIIT (high-intensity interval training) workouts, and some of the more conceptualized ones, like the aforementioned "'Quiet' Cardio" and this "Rise and Shine" morning workout:

So hip-hip-hooray for Jessica Smith. I could spill 500 more words about how she fits into the zeitgeist of DIY YouTube success, but I'm more interested in her message than her medium. What comes through most of all in Jessica's work, as well as in her judiciously served commentary, is the importance of feeling good rather than looking good. That sounds like a cliché, but it's hard to overstate how difficult it can be to internalize that message when society, the media, and your own demons are constantly telling you there's something wrong with the way you look. Jessica only wants you get to know your body, to appreciate it, and to maintain that contraption so that you feel good spending all your time on earth inside of it. 

What A Feeling! Freedanse and Flashdance

VIDEO: Freedanse, free on YouTube

STYLE: Dance aerobics and conditioning

INTENSITY: Light to moderate/high

STRUCTURE: Warm-up (8 min.), Pilates-style conditioning (17 min.), dance aerobics (20 min.), cooldown (6 min.)

GIST: Height of '80s aerobics earnestness, with an appealing Euro twist. Takes a minute to get going, but a quality sweat sesh overall. Beginner friendly, but those with choreography pickup and Pilates skills will have an easier time.

To quote YouTube user edd_I: "THERE IT IS. THAT ASS FROM FLASH DANCE. THATT ASSSS!"

Yes, nostalgia junkies of the internet, there it is: that ass belongs to Marine Jahan, the French dancer best known for bringing the flash to the famously overrated Flashdance (1983). Nobody cares about the lame love story that takes up the bulk of the movie; they remember, in reverse order, 1) Jennifer Beals in a welding mask and 2) the dance sequences—training SOHARD to "Maniac," the one with the water dumped on her, and wowing the snooty judges at the big audition. That was Marine! She crushed it, made the movie, yet never got a film credit for her work. (I found several other sources confirming this, my favorite being the Marine Jahan entry in this self-published reference guide, "The Jennifer Beals Handbook: Everything You Need to Know About Jennifer Beals.")

Freedanse (1984) was Marine's shot at marrying the film's success with the burgeoning aerobics craze to make a hit of her own. With her hairspray-encrusted Julie Andrews 'do and a game troupe donning the height of hi-cut activewear, Marine brings a loose ease and a hint of European sophistication to the proceedings. Note the French-style spelling of "danse" in the title—mais bien sur. 

Before we get started, though, Marine needs to take some slow-motion time in the spotlight, serving up at long last her byline, along with some danspiration, the theme song ("All your dreams will come true with Freedanse!"), and a good look at her leotard's crotch strip.

It goes on for a while. Then we get to the actual workout, and we're ready to go, like ready freddy doing the freddy ready—and she starts with head rolls. Which, ok, yeah I've been to dance classes that start straightaway with stretches, but lady, you're in the world of workout videos. That means cardio warm-up. In class, you get by on the threat of public shame; you don't stop just because your stiff head rolls are like a busted rake across your shoulders. At home, you need a smewwwth transition past the "I am but a tatty jumble of nerves and fat" stage. Don't make me wait for those step-touches, Marine.

So we're stretching . . . 

. . . reaching . . . 

. . . pulsing our pubes, together.

I like these downward-dog relevés; she does them neutral, turned in, and turned out. The calves appreciate the thoroughness. 

There's a decent amount of floor work, much of it in the Pilates vein. Lots of butt clenching. The music goes from generic keyboard groove to aggressively corny synth-harmonica. You have to either get on board with it or face sudden feelings of hostility and self-doubt. "Am I this music?" you'll ask yourself. "Do I look like how this sounds?" You probably do, but that's ok.

The cardio section begins pretty innocently, with simple step-touches and arm raises, but quickly gets you panting with a long, high-kneed pony section. And she's very precise, Marine. No grapevine or reaching palm is taken for granted. 

The harmonica funk returns, this time with lyrics about "going to the health spa, better than the corner bar," and you're doing this broken jumping jack spine roll thing, and if you stick with it you actually ascend to a higher level of human comedy, and that alone is an accomplishment.

It's usually by about this point in the video that I'm totally sold on it. All the conditioning exercises are just a long preamble to Marine's body beats dramatiques. The big finish is a series of step turns, which you're encouraged to jazz up into Freedansing ecstasy. Just look at this guy on the right:

Those are head rolls to make the angels sing. 

Once I finally did this video to completion, I looked forward to doing it again, and we enjoyed a fun week-long fling together. I haven't felt the desire to do it since, but it's totally decent and as authentic to '80s aerobics as you'll get outside of the Crystal Light National Aerobics Championships. Find yourself a dance belt, inhale hairspray in a brightly lit closet for a while, then give Freedanse a try. 

Jessica Smith, "Ballet Burn" and How I Lost My Fear of YouTube Workouts

So maybe YouTube fitness vlogs aren't so incomprehensible? I'm way behind the times on seeking out these free online offerings -- too busy using YouTube to chase clips of existing DVDs and (the real treasure) VHS tapes. Case in point: when I was craving a ballet class the other day but wouldn't have been able to get to one in time, I started googling for a free barre soundtrack, which I think is a thing? I know they have these CDs for ballet classes but I guess you're supposed to have an actual teacher giving you the combinations. Anyway, instead I found something far more useful but comparably effective as a workout.

"Ballet Burn," available in full above, is one of many workout videos by YouTube fitness maven Jessica Smith. Clocking in at just under an hour, it's perfect for anyone who wants ballet-style conditioning. You're not going to get much in the way of traditional ballet instruction, but she gives clear, concise information for each exercise as well as overall basic technique.

I like this chick's style: no forced perkiness, no shouting or babbling, no hamming it up for the camera. She's competent and casual, like working out with your fitness-instructor friend who is also a gentle shut-in and can't share her gift in public because of crippling social anxiety from that terrible freak kettleball accident 10 years ago. Only with you and her French bulldog there can she leave those memories behind and find an outlet for the passion that not so much rages but burbles inside her.

The routine starts off with some balletic cardio and goes through a series of leg lift variations, arm/leg combos, plié variations, and stretches. She finds interesting and fun ways to incorporate tendus, dégagés, battements, arabesques, and ports de bras. Her ports de bras exercises in particular are fantastic, as she brings in 3-lb hand weights to condition the arms as they go through first, second and fifth positions. My biceps were so sore the next day, but adding the extra weight really helped me focus on keeping my core stable while giving my arms full range of motion.

Speaking of soreness, DAT ASS. If you're up on your PureBarre or Callanetics, you'll probably have an easier time than I did with the glute-heavy stuff. I can do squats and pliés all the livelong day, but bring in stuff that works the gluteus medius (lesser-known glute that sits on the top and side of each butt-check) and I'm cursing the world in short order. The first time I did this video, my butt basically gave out near the end. Was like "nope, no thank you, not gonna do it and you can't make me." 


But(t)! I'm glad I found my way to Jessica's neatly appointed living room. I'll definitely be trying some of her other videos, and who knows -- I may even venture further into the YouTube fitness frontier.

Estelle Getty: "a peanut who's determined not to get any smaller."

This really needs no introduction or explanation, except to say that it's almost my recently departed grandma's birthday. She made nearly 92 years and stayed young at heart for all of them. I miss her.

PS - Be sure to hold out for the part where she brings in her trainer, a "full-time French hunk," and they exchange mutual affection thusly:

     "Estelle, you're my inspiration."

     "Oh please, I could live inside one your thighs."