(WBIR) Hundreds of thousands of people all over the world dance with Jessica! It's true. A local mom has an international following and for good reason.
Pop music pumping. Hard bodies happening. This could only be "Dance Fitness with Jessica!"
"I use squats. I use kicks. We get on the floor. We do burpies. We do mountain climbers. We do push ups. We do planks," says Jessica Bass, creator of Dance Fitness with Jessica.
She gets these ladies going in a big way!
"When you hear the songs that come on the radio you can just dance easier. You just feel it," says Jessica.
And Jessica is a great dancer!
"My grandmother was a dancer growing up and she did fitness classes here. I just saw her dance and that inspired me. Also, it was a way for me to escape through hard times in life. I just went in my room and danced," says Jessica.
Jessica grew up in Knoxville and life wasn't always easy. "I got pregnant at a very young age. I was 18. I was scared."
She gave up on her college plans and became a mom and a wife in a matter of months. "We decided to get married. We thought that was the right thing to do. We really didn't know each other," says Jessica.
They stayed married for six years, had three kids and all the while in addition to her 9-5 job, Jessica taught dance.
"I had just had a baby and wanted to get the pounds off."
She started off with just three people at West Lonsdale Baptist Church.
"In weeks it just built and built and built," says Jessica. "A month later we were probably to 30. The first year I hit over a thousand people. No advertisement, just word of mouth."
And then came a request that would forever change her life. "The ladies were asking me if I could upload some videos because the classes had gotten so big that they just wanted to practice the choreography for class."
So she casually recorded a video and uploaded it to her private Facebook page. "Then I was a wife and mother of three kids. So I was like, 'No one's going to see these. I don't care what I look like. I don't care who sees this. It's just for these ladies for class.' Within minutes my phone wouldn't stop going off. It just kept buzzing and buzzing," says Jessica.
Her videos had gone viral.
"In the first week one of my dances that was the one that made me go viral was Dark Horse (Katy Perry) and it hit 1.7 million people in one week on Facebook," says Jessica.
Then a production company came calling offering her a workout DVD contract. Now she does it all, live streaming of her classes all over the world, a YouTube channel, five DVDs and hundreds of thousands of fans, many of whom have lost a lot of weight.
"These ladies are soaked from head to toe when they leave here. They are just amazing!" says Jessica. "We've had ladies in here lose over 100 pounds!"
And she does not take one moment for granted.
"It's a once in a lifetime chance, but one in a million get this opportunity so I am trying to make the most of it."
Jessica Bass can certainly shake it, but she also inspires people all over the world to shake it, which is the most important part.
One of Your Stories. There's no place like this one.
