Meet Joanna Jo” Heckert | Yoga Teacher & Owner of Go Yoga Jo

We had the good fortune of connecting with Joanna “Jo” Heckert and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Joanna “Jo”, what is the most important factor behind your success?
Paying attention to the clients around me and listening to their challenges has been the key to getting where I am now. When I first began teaching yoga, I imagined I would have a room full of people of mixed age and ability. When you can step back and view your audience with a wider lens, they can give you the insight to see your niche in action. I believe everyone can reap the physical, emotional, and mental benefits of yoga however, as I continued teaching I began to notice that my clients all had something in common: they were seniors. I was slowly collecting active seniors looking to improve their flexibility, increase their range of motion, build strength, improve their bone density, and maintain their physical independence. Building your brand is all about creating subtle shifts to better align your vision and your actions. For me, that continues to mean gathering knowledge about modifying yoga for seniors and understanding their unique challenges. My clients regularly share their stories about improved strength minimizing their fall risk, improved bone density, and their overall sense of strength and independence which brings me great joy for both myself and my clients.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
The only constant is change. Growing up as a military child and later becoming a military spouse meant being on the move and starting over a lot. While our lifestyle has its shares of goodbyes it also brings new opportunities. As an e-RYT200, RYT500, and YACEP with Yoga Alliance, I knew teaching yoga would be a transferable skill no matter where we lived. However,  I also pride myself on being a mother first. As a small business owner and independent contractor I have the ability to set my own schedule and work around my family and its needs. Anytime you move, especially when you have a business, you are starting over trying to prove yourself in a new area. As a mobile yoga studio offering online yoga and in-person yoga classes in Beaufort it gives me the best of everything. I can keep long-time clients from previous areas and also grow new roots to make new connections in the Lowcountry. I’ve been able to add monthly membership options for clients to take yoga with me online and a catalog of pre-recorded classes to watch anytime for yoga on demand. As I continue to plant my own roots here in Beaufort, I’ve begun working collaboratively with many local yoga teachers as well as taking on some larger business partners like the National Park Service for monthly staff wellness. Once I got into the online teaching landscape I found an opportunity to work with the scientific community at the University of Madison Wisconsin. I was hired to teach yoga online to rural seniors over the course of two study groups. Having the chance to participate in a scientific study looking to demonstrate the value of yoga for seniors as fall prevention could be a huge contribution to my area of interest and expertise. Most recently, I will be teaching a class for OLLI (The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute) in February at the Beaufort USCB campus to educate and empower local seniors on how yoga can make a difference in their lives. Embracing the ebb and flow of things has allowed me to dig in and look for unique opportunities and allowed me to be more fearless trying new ideas, new strategies, and new ways to share yoga in an ever increasing global community.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I enjoy cooking and making my guests feel at home which includes serving up fresh eggs from our sweet and social flock of twelve chickens. Our beautiful hens are an assortment of Buff Orpingtons, Ameracaunas, Golden Laced Wyandottes, and Blue Easter Eggers which means we have quite the color palette of eggs at the ready. We would make my usual stop at Old Timey Meats to chat with Roger and the amazing staff there to get the freshest, best tasting meat. I usually add a delicious crab cake in a giant mushroom cap for myself. Naturally, I can’t stop there without popping into the local treasure that is Grayco where you are quite likely to run into Mr. Gray himself. I don’t know how they managed to make a hardware store something on my must-stop list but they have found the niche where men and women can both get excited to go to Grayco. I’ve found several beautiful and unique lowcountry gifts and am always impressed by their friendly service.

For tasty offerings not prepared in the Heckert house we would head downtown to Lowcountry Produce where I’d have to make a tough decision between two of my favorites: The Traveler’s Breakfast featuring fig preserves and fresh tomatoes or the Oooey Gooey Fried Chicken Sandwich with pimento cheese and delicious jam. I adore their tall ceilings, intimate setting, and colorful art displays. We’d also eat the green curry or one of the other tasty dishes at Yes, Thai Indeed. They always serve just the right amount of food to be satisfied without being overly full. Last on the “Taste of Beaufort” tour, if I had enough advance notice, I’d make a reservation at Black Sheep for the killer menu, wine pairings, and attentive service in a setting where time seems to slow down.

With all that eating, we can walk our meals off with a little light shopping and perusing downtown. I can never be downtown without stopping at the local library to return borrowed books and gather new books. From there, we can make our way down to Bay Street with a stop into Olive the Above to refill my bottles of oils, chat with the staff, or taste anything new while taking in their seasonal decor. We would also pop into the I. Pinckney Simons Gallery to see the art with a special focus on two of my talented local clients. Eve Miller paints ethereal pastel landscapes with warm beauty, and the charming Christine Stanley has an eye for mixing materials for each piece of stunning jewelry. The joy of living in a small town is that you can find and make so many personal connections in your community.

Consistency is key and I don’t like to cancel my online or in-person yoga classes so I’d invite my bestie to join me! We’d head over to the Celadon Club & Wellness Center for my Yoga for Healthy Aging Class. After class, we could stay to hang out by the pool and eat lunch on the patio. If we were feeling like we needed a little pampering we could even schedule massages guaranteed to take the kinks out of tired muscles.

I’d be sure to check the schedule at the Center for The Arts at USCB downtown for a program or performance. There is plenty of local sight-seeing from the downtown Beaufort walking tree tour and many of the other beautiful parks by the National Park Service’s National Reconstruction Era office. I’d also encourage my bestie to take in the sights over every bridge we crossed because there is breathtaking natural beauty everywhere in the lowcountry. To preserve our fun together and truly capture the memories, I’d see if we could schedule some photos with the supremely talented and affable Tim Nelson of One Eleven Photo.

Trekking beyond my immediate area, I’d squeeze in a trip to Hunting Island to stretch our legs, walk the beaches, and see the trees. Last but not least, the night skies are hard to beat down here in SC. If you live in a busy city or nearer to the hustle and bustle you may be missing out on the late night sky viewing that you can only get in a more remote location. I’d make sure we had a chance to look skyward after dark for some awe inspiring stargazing.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I’ve been fortunate to have the support of my family to pursue my interests and become a yoga teacher, ultimately starting Go Yoga Jo, LLC. Before that, I had an amazing teacher who gave me the skills to teach yoga. My 200 hr training was taken over the course of a year in the little town of Swansboro, North Carolina under the guidance of Valerie Baltzer of Transcending Yoga. Her teaching style spoke to the very core of how I wanted to teach when given the opportunity. She was skilled, articulate, knowledgeable, and empowering. She often tasked us with assignments and projects I was not confident I was prepared for and with each task I began to see the building blocks and the path forward unfolding. Over the next year, I went on to complete my advanced teacher training with Valerie. At the completion of my training, I thanked her for her knowledge and support, and told her she had “helped me take flight”. To my surprise, she remarked that I had always had the wings, she simply helped me learn how to use them. My time and training with Valerie enabled me to share my love for yoga.

Website: www.goyogajo.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goyogajo

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joanna-heckert-a776437a/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoYogaJo/

Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/go-yoga-jo-beaufort

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@goyogajo

Image Credits
Professional headshot by One Eleven Photo