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Jazzercise still evolving after 45 years

Fighting its image, program looking to future generations

The Columbian
Published: July 14, 2014, 12:00am
2 Photos
Kristen Smith of Linthicum, Md., dances at a Jazzercise Live event led by Jazzercise founder Judi Sheppard Missett; Jazzercise Live is  an annual event that swoops into a new city each year. Illustrates HEALTH-EXERCISE (category l), by Vicky Hallett, (c) 2014, The Washington Post.  Moved Wednesday, July 09, 2014. (MUST CREDIT: Photo by J.
Kristen Smith of Linthicum, Md., dances at a Jazzercise Live event led by Jazzercise founder Judi Sheppard Missett; Jazzercise Live is an annual event that swoops into a new city each year. Illustrates HEALTH-EXERCISE (category l), by Vicky Hallett, (c) 2014, The Washington Post. Moved Wednesday, July 09, 2014. (MUST CREDIT: Photo by J. Lawler Duggan for The Washington Post.) Photo Gallery

“I hear it,” a woman proclaimed, and then darted down a hallway at the Washington Hilton. A tank-top-clad parade rushed closely behind, also drawn to the faint beat of OneRepublic’s “Counting Stars.” The music intensified as they descended the staircase into the hotel’s International Ballroom.

On the other side of those doors awaited hundreds of women (and a handful of men) jammed together for the kickoff of Jazzercise Live, an annual event that swoops into a new city each year. Last month, Washington hosted for the first time.

It’s part rally, part fashion show, with waving flags from several nations and attendees decked out in branded apparel. And it’s all a celebration of the life’s work of Judi Sheppard Missett, who started teaching her dance-based workout program 45 years ago.

The 70-year-old didn’t need an introduction with this crowd, but the emcee gave her a pretty great one, anyway: “Our founder, our chief executive officer and the wind beneath our wings, Judi!”

In a sparkly top and high heels that accentuated her leggy figure, Missett welcomed the already sweaty audience. (Her daughter, Jazzercise President Shanna Missett Nelson, 45, had just warmed them up with a few fast-paced numbers.) Tonight, she explained, they were going to have a conversation.

“I thought I’d talk to you about how this all happened,” Missett said, taking them back to 1969, when she was a student at Northwestern University and a professional dancer who taught jazz in Chicago. Women seemed to like her classes but wouldn’t stick with them.

The reason? “I was teaching like they were going to Broadway. And they were going to their class reunion,” Missett said.

With simpler choreography, they’d feel better about themselves and keep coming, she reasoned. And she was right. The first class with this new format had 15 students. The second week, 30 showed up. The week after that, it was 60 — and Missett realized she was on to something.

“It’s important to change and listen to the cues that life gives you. Look where it led me,” said Missett, pointing to the success of her now California-based company. Thinking about how to evolve for the future has guided her business practices to this day, and it’s why, she added, Jazzercise has some “big changes” coming in the next six months.

What’s next

Missett and other higher-ups are mum on what exactly these will entail, other than some vague references to updated marketing materials. But the goal is easy to guess: attract more young people.

“Everybody knows what Zumba is. That’s the cool thing right now,” said attendee Laura McCabe, 38, a center owner from Kentucky, as she took a break during a two-hour-long exercise session later that weekend. Jazzercise has fantastic name recognition, but “people think of it as Grandma’s or Mom’s workout,” she said. Jazzercise’s blend of cardio, strength and flexibility is why McCabe looks better now than she did 10 years ago, but to most folks she meets, it’s synonymous with “having a thong leotard up your butt.” And fighting that image is tricky, she added, even with members of her own family.

No one gets as infuriated by this state of affairs as Missett. The night before Jazzercise Live began, she sat in her hotel suite and laid out the problem.

“People think we’re still doing what Jane Fonda did, even though, frankly, we never did that. But that’s the perception,” Missett said. “We wouldn’t still be here. And I wouldn’t be here because I’d be bored to tears.”

Jazzercise distributes new music and moves to its 7,800 instructors every 10 weeks. Missett still picks each song from the latest releases, handles all of the choreography and tests her material on students firsthand by teaching nearly every day. Despite having churned out thousands of routines over the years, she said the process never feels repetitive.

“The kinds of movements I did in 1990 are different than today. Dance culture has changed, music has changed,” said Missett, who noted that the science has changed as well.

To emphasize that Jazzercise is more than just sashays and single-single-doubles, the company launched five new workouts this year: Fusion (based on high-intensity interval training), Strike (with a kickboxing focus), Core (which targets the abs), and Strength45 and Strength60 (45 minutes or an hour of taking body sculpting “to the next level”).

Missett’s legacy

For Rose Cain, 53, of Frederick, Md., Jazzercise has been a source of “instant friends” wherever she’s moved. Her pal Lisa Brown — and probably at least half of the other women in attendance — raved about how it’s led to remarkable weight loss. “I’ve never felt better than when I do Jazzercise,” said Brown, 30, who’s dropped 25 pounds and counting.

Missett isn’t ready to give up her day-to-day duties, but she thinks a great deal about her legacy. When she does decide to retire — maybe to return to the performing career she put on hold in the 1970s — her daughter is prepared to step into her dancing shoes.

And her 11-year-old granddaughter isn’t too far behind. One of the new songs presented in Washington was the World Cup anthem “We Are One (Ole-Ola),” which the tween had choreographed for her middle school classmates. Missett asked for permission to borrow the routine, which starts with some funky fist-waving.

Those next two generations “are my exit plan,” Missett said. That’s certainly one way to keep Jazzercise feeling younger.

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