The Godfather of Soul—James Brown—once said, “Get up off of that thing. Dance and you’ll feel better.” And although that sentiment is more about the mindset adjustment felt when you lose yourself on the dance floor, people who dance as a form of exercise also prove to feel better physically.
However, moving feet to a beat wasn’t always accessible as a form of working out. In fact, outside of dancehalls and courses meant for professionals, the chance for women to exercise, let alone get in a little choreographed cardio, was limited.
Enter Judi Sheppard Missett.
In the 1960s, Missett was a performer with a company called Giordano Jazz Dance Chicago. But she also taught a class called Jazz Dance for Adult Beginners. Unfortunately, most of the attendees couldn’t keep up with the rigorous professional dance routines—particularly the wives and mothers who enrolled.
What she learned as she talked to clients led to an interesting discovery.
“We don’t want to be a professional dancer, we just want to look like one,” Missett says attendees told her. “And so that was the light bulb.”
She took that to heart and asked the company’s director if she could try teaching something new.
In this era, women were encouraged to look fit, but not carry on with unladylike activities. Sweating, according to journalist Danielle Friedman, was frowned upon, and demanding physical activity was even considered a health hazard.
“During that time, for women, the idea of breaking a sweat, of lifting weights, of cultivating strength for strength’s sake was really considered quite radical,” Friedman says. “There were also a whole lot of myths and fears about what vigorous, strenuous exercise would do to a woman’s body—for example, that it could damage her reproductive organs, make her uterus fall out.”
Science has since proved that entirely false, but so too did a 1969 dance revolution led by Missett.
“I made it simple, playing follow the leader, turning away from the mirror so they didn’t look at themselves,” she says. “I became their mirror, basically, and tried to give them lots of positive encouragement, and just use fun music and everything. That was the beginning.”
Her movement was the start of a business that has lasted more than 55 years.
And its name is Jazzercise.
Though Missett didn’t intend to start a business, the popularity of her classes grew throughout La Jolla, California, and became something of a sensation. She simply called it what it was, “Jazz Dance for Fun and Fitness,” until one of the women in a class—Margaret Orenyak—approached her with a new moniker.
“She said, ‘I think you should call it Jazzercise, because it’s jazz dance and it’s exercise, and I just think that would be a great name,’” Missett reflects.
With growing interest and a perfect designation, Jazzercise was off to the races with Missett as CEO. Orenyak would also go on to become the company’s first COO and a lifelong friend of Missett’s.
After consulting with a lawyer and trademarking the name, Missett realized her business was getting too big to handle as the sole teacher and proprietor, so she began franchising. Not only was this an exercise movement, it also became a women’s movement.
“I’m very much into empowering women, and I wanted them to feel like they own their own business,” she said. “I furnished the material, the choreography, and the artistic part and gave them some business guidance.”
What started as a relatively poorly attended, difficult jazz class has grown to 1,060 locations in the U.S. and 2,170 total worldwide—operating in 16 countries—with more than 7,000 franchise instructors. It even landed on the Inc. 5000 in 2010 after more than four decades in business—an unusual feat!
As of 2019, Jazzercise had raked in $100 million in revenue as it celebrated its 50th anniversary. Since then, its membership has risen to 60,000 attendees at physical locations as well as 20,000 on-demand (online) subscribers.
Missett describes the pivot to online streaming services as a godsend that saved Jazzercise during the Covid-19 pandemic. It was fortuitous timing on the product’s release that kept the business afloat.
“Six months before, we were experimenting with an online streaming platform,” Missett says. “Because we had that platform, we were able to offer our franchisees the opportunity to give all their members a membership on the streaming platform so they would continue to stay with us and take Jazzercise, which they did.”
Jazzercise had launched it in the fall of 2019, allowing members to seek solace in dance from the comfort of their homes. However, the company’s bread and butter is still its physical locations, which Missett says remain very popular post-pandemic.
“Our in-studio membership is far exceeding the online,” she adds. “People like to be with people, you know, and that’s a lot of what we’re about as a community, building friendships and getting together.”
Though she helped usher in the era of boutique fitness classes, which has over the past few decades become a deeply competitive market, Missett has never really had her eyes on any business adversaries. In part, she says, it’s because she and Jazzercise as an organization have always remained true to their niche brand identity and stayed rooted in the thing they know best: dance.
“We have always been dance-based, and we always will be,” she says. “That’s who we are. When you start to branch out and try to be somebody else, it doesn’t work.”
Though Jazzercise has kept to its identity, the classes are constantly evolving. Missett and her daughter (even her granddaughter now) contribute to choreographing new workouts to make sure members don’t sour on stale routines.
“I am so fortunate to have a staff that is incredibly creative and artistic,” Missett adds. “We continue to keep coming up with new offerings for our members. We do new choreography—my daughter, myself. Every month, they get another set of new choreography, new music, so that keeps it fresh.”
Missett, an octogenarian, says she still has no plan to slow down in business or on the dance floor. Though her daughter is now CEO, Missett continues to serve on the Jazzercise board and dances every day. She still teaches classes, too.
“I have a motto, which is, ‘Keep moving so you can keep going,’” she says. “Movement is really important. It’s a part of my life. It has been since I was a very tiny little girl, and I will continue to have that as a part of my life.”
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