Judi Sheppard Missett

Judi Sheppard Missett was born in 1944 in Red Oak, Iowa, and began dance classes in early childhood. By her teenage years she was already teaching. After high school, she studied theater and dance at Northwestern University and trained in jazz dance with Gus Giordano in Evanston, Illinois, where she performed professionally and taught at his school.

In 1969, Missett fundamentally reshaped her jazz classes. She simplified choreography, turned participants away from the mirror, selected popular music, and built the experience around encouragement and enjoyment rather than stage preparation. This redesign—taking place in an Evanston dance studio—marked the beginning of Jazzercise. The shift was decisive: she had listened to adult students who loved dancing without aspiring to professional performance, and she built a system around that insight.

When Missett relocated to the San Diego area in the 1970s, she expanded Jazzercise through community classes and trained additional instructors. Military-family mobility helped spread the format to new locations. Recorded choreography allowed consistent instruction across distance, and the company developed a franchising structure that became one of the most visible dance-fitness systems in the United States by the early 1980s, supported by records, home-video programs, and in-person classes.

Missett's work extended far beyond that era. She continued choreographing and adapting the format as music, exercise science, and customer expectations evolved. Jazzercise added strength work, on-demand delivery, and updated class formats while preserving its foundation in dance-based group participation. In 2005, *Fitness Business Pro* awarded her a lifetime-achievement honor recognizing her sustained contribution to the fitness field.

The company became a multigenerational, women-led enterprise. Her daughter Shanna Missett Nelson and granddaughter Skyla Nelson joined its leadership and teaching lineage. As Jazzercise marked its fifty-fifth anniversary in 2024, Missett remained involved as executive chair, instructor, and choreographic contributor, continuing to shape a company that operated across more than 2,000 studios worldwide.