How Jazzercise started in metro Chicago 55 years ago
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Photo: Courtesy of Jazzercise Inc.
Before Jazzercise was the global sensation so synonymous with leotards, leg warmers and bouncy beats, it started with one class at a dance studio in Evanston.
The big picture: Professionally trained dancer Judi Sheppard Missett created the cardio workout for people who wanted to have fun with fitness, and more than 50 years later there are more than 2,000 Jazzercise studios worldwide.
Driving the news: Missett, 80, is popping in to help teach Jazzercise classes across the country to celebrate the company's 55 years in business.
Flashback: In 1969, Missett was a recent Northwestern grad working in theater and teaching dance classes at Gus Giordano Dance School in Evanston (before the school moved to Andersonville). Missett noticed students were dropping out of her class, telling her the sessions were too difficult and disciplined.
- So Missett created a workout based on jazz dance technique, played fun music and offered positive encouragement to the women. (And yes, the students were all women.)
- Over the next few years, word-of-mouth spread, and Missett's classes grew from 15 students to more than 60, especially popular with mothers who could bring their children to the studio.
Missett moved to California in the mid-1970s and started offering Jazzercise sessions for $5 a month, making the classes more accessible to a wider customer base.
The intrigue: Realizing she couldn't alone meet the demand of the classes, Missett trained more teachers, and by the early 1980s, Jazzercise began franchising. At one point, Jazzercise and Domino's Pizza were the top two franchises in the country, Missett tells Axios.
The latest: Today's classes are not your mother's, aunt's or grandmother's Jazzercise. You can take classes online, in addition to in-studio, and some classes involve weights and resistance bands to include more sculpting in the workout.
- Missett still teaches Jazzercise classes, but her daughter Shanna Nelson is CEO and chief choreographer.
What they're saying: "I have great customers that have been with us for almost the total 55 years we've been in existence," Missett says. "They have continued to stay healthy and fit all along with the program, and they say, 'We could never not do this, we are never going to stop,' so I have to keep going."
If you go: There's a Jazzercise studio in Schaumburg, but it's also taught at parks, churches, schools and other venues throughout the area.
The bottom line: Even if you're not a dancer, Jazzercise is a valuable cardio workout that can take you out of your comfort zone and tone underused muscles.
Editor's note: This story has been corrected to say there are more than 2,000 Jazzercise studios worldwide (not 8,000).