Who is Mel Scott?

Hi, I am Mel Scott, I was diagnosed at age 7 with retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disease which causes severe vision impairment. By age 11 I began learning braille. Today, I have a little bit of vision left. I can actually still use my vision to get around. But I prefer walking with Jingles, my guide dog.

So here is my story.

I had been whining and moaning for a long time about the fact that traditional at-home workout videos and DVDs were not accessible. When I was riding my stationary bike I got this “aha” moment. It said “stop whining and create it yourself.” My heart was pounding.

I immediately started working with a team of fitness instructors - as well as visually impaired music composers - to create a series of descriptive audio exercise workouts as part of my BlindAlive ™ Eyes-Free Fitness™ offerings. 

Within a day of my epiphany, I had a fitness instructor and Website developer in place. In the first nine months, we created six descriptive audio workouts, a Website, a blog, a podcast, a sound tag, as well as a voice on social media.

I still remain “hands-on” with all my products. They have to work for me before I give the final okay! You will note that there is a detailed exercise description to complement each workout, which I record myself.

When asked which are my favorite workouts:

I do all of them. I modify to whatever I feel like doing. They’re all my favorites. I told my husband, if nothing else, I’m going to have a very expensive library of workout programs I can do all by myself.

I hope these workouts appeal to sighted people as well, showing them that they don’t have to use their eyes for everything. If you are constantly looking at a video, it brings you out of yourself. But if you close your eyes, it brings you into your body and you become more aware of what is going on inside of you. I want to move the exercise and fitness world in different direction.