The brand you’re most likely wearing on your feet right now, Nike, has partnered up with Pedestrian.tv to treat you all to a weekly wrap-up of the NikeWomen‘s newest original series, Margot vs Lily. We’ll be kicking back in our activewear, with a bag of natural, lightly-salted popcorn each week, watching the series and doing (or trying to do) the guided exercises you can find here, all in a bid to become fitter, stronger and generally better versions of ourselves. 
Over the past coupla weeks we’ve been recapping ep’s of Nike’s original series, Margot vs Lily – the show follows the lives of two sisters living and sweating in NYC – and this week’s instalment is titled Dancers, which made our brains quick-step to the following:
Tragically, the vid doesn’t contain any spirit fingers, but does include some… vigorous dancing from Lily in her thus far unsuccessful quest for mates:
Aaaand in the *spirit* of all things dance, we had a chat to Stefanie De Castro, a professional dancer, Nike trainer, musical theatre performer and actress about what her day involves, what gets her moving and how us non-dancing folk can adopt these principles to get our lives more on pointe.
Stef has been shaking her groove thing for a whopping twenty-three years. She started at the tender age of five, studying almost every style under the sun: jazz, ballet, tap, hip-hop, contemporary. You name it, she’s danced it.
“I’ve now been working as a professional dancer in shows and events in Australia and abroad for almost ten years,” she tells us. In addition to dancing, she’s a lead trainer at the NikeWomen’s Studio in Melbourne.
Dancing takes a helluvalotta energy and stamina. Anyone who has woken up on a Sunday morning with a sore neck/back/arse from whip-cracking it to Beyonce in the club will attest to this. But what does a day in the life of a professional look like, exactly?
~ The schedule ~
5AM: Wake up.
5:10AM: Drive to work (I teach Pilates in the mornings) – coffee and music in the car.
5:30AM – Arrive at Pilates studio and plan classes for the day by physically running through most of the exercises I will be teaching.
6AM – 8AM: Teach two Pilates reformer classes, back to back.
8AM – 9:15AM: I have a break which is usually the most productive hour and 15 minutes of my day! I have breakfast, and use this time to do whatever it may be that I really need to do – usually choreography for a performance or a Pilates workout of my own if I wont have time to get to a class later.
9:15AM -11:05AM: Teach two more Pilates reformer classes.
11:05AM – 1PM: Home for lunch, and often go for a power walk with my mum! (Bless).
1PM – 2PM: I may have any number of things depending what day it is. I have private singing lessons once a week, or I may have an audition on or an audition to prepare for. As a dancer much time is often spent preparing for auditions, whether it be practicing audition songs, scripts, or researching and practicing dance in the style of the show.
2PM – 3:30PM: Dance class. I like to attend 3 dance classes per week. This is my ‘me’ time where I can get in the zone and focus on my craft and my passion.
4PM – 9PM: Depending on what day of the week it is, I will either be teaching Pilates or Dance. I teach dance to students of all ages, and I teach Pilates at the Nike Women’s Studio in Fitzroy, as well as group Reformer Pilates classes.
Surely, you’d have mornings like the rest of us where you truly CBF leaving your bed. Do you have any rituals that help you get up and get motivated on those tougher days?
“Other than drinking a coffee at 5am, music always gets me going. In the car, and as soon as I get to work at the Pilates studio, I put it on and it peps me up! I also move a lot – it’s amazing what a few yoga stretches can do to lift your mood and bring energy to your body.”
And her choice in music?
“I’m loving Sax by Fleur East, Gold by Kiiara, and Good For You by Selena Gomez“.
If you could be any fictional character from a dance movie, who would you be?
“This is a hard question,” she begins. “Ultimately, Alex Owens in Flashdance would have to be the top pick.”
“Defying the odds by training herself and then putting herself out there in a professional audition, love it! This woman shows that with determination anything is possible. I’m also a sucker for 80’s style jazz. It’s awesome.”
If you’re aching for some Bacon-style exercise, you can jam it to the below vid:
*Pirouettes into sunset*.
