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Jo Montgomery & Her Big Idea Story and photos by Cheryl Murfin

At 5 feet even, Jo Montgomery isn’t much taller than her energetic 8-year-old student Mikey, but she is proof positive that great vision can come in small — but strong — packages.
Standing next to Mikey, she coaxes the child off the floor from where he is seated on a gymnastics mat, up and into a full handstand, barely spotting him with her hands. This move is astounding for the fact that Mikey has spina bifida and minimal use of his legs.

From this acrobatic feat, Mikey whips across the floor and pulls himself up and around a trapeze bar dangling above the mat. With Montgomery right behind him as spotter, he flips his small body around the bar 20 times — more rotations than even some of the professional acrobats who train here at the School of Acrobatics & New Circus Arts, better known as SANCA.

“He’s got incredible core strength,” says Montgomery. “Mikey is really proof of what this program can do for kids. He’s amazing. He never gives up.”

And neither does Montgomery when she has a “big idea” that just won’t go away. Almost everyone close to the spunky, self-effacing SANCA executive director recognizes the level of vision and focus it took for her to pull two seemingly incongruous passions — her concern for the increasingly poor state of children’s health and love of circus arts — together for the betterment of many.

In 2004, just nine months after hatching this idea, Montgomery teamed up with partner Charles Johnson to open SANCA. The nonprofit organization’s mission is to help people of all ages who may be unable to participate in other sports for financial, physical, social or other reasons to gain health, strength and confidence in a supportive, noncompetitive environment.

“And one that is a heck of a lot of fun too,” Montgomery is quick to add.

A pediatric nurse practitioner at Seattle’s Odessa Brown Children’s Clinic in Seattle’s Central District since 1983, Montgomery began gymnastic training when she was 7 years old. Years later, when she enrolled her own daughter in gymnastics she decided to get herself back in shape as well by enrolling in an adult gymnastics class taught by Johnson, a circus arts instructor who was then based in Portland.

Soon Montgomery was making connections with circus artists. And as her own body shaped up, she became more and more impressed with the many health benefits (weight loss, increased strength, agility and confidence, to name a few) that are part and parcel of circus training.
Still, as her interest in the arts increased, she couldn’t help thinking about the families she worked with every day at the clinic.

Many of the kids Montgomery sees in her office at Odessa Brown struggle with weight or social issues that make it hard to join popular sports. Many more come from families too financially strapped to afford programs like the gymnastics classes she sent her own daughter to or that she herself joined before SANCA was born.

“It was one of those ‘aha!’ moments: I work every day with kids who simply do not have access to these kinds of fun things that can keep them healthy and help them improve so many conditions,” she says. “I knew I could change that. Now when I see one of these kids do something they didn’t think they could do and they get a big grin…it’s just a great thing to facilitate.”

SANCA is the fusion of Montgomery’s passions and her dedication to community giving. When she opened the school, she and Johnson made a commitment to provide all children the opportunity to participate in the programs there, regardless of their ability to pay. They have stuck to that promise. This year SANCA will offer more than $45,000 in class and program scholarships.

“Jo had a vision of combining her love of acrobatics and the circus community with her concern for children who were overweight and might not be suited for traditional sports activities,’’ says Lenna Liu, a pediatrician at Odessa Brown. “And she had the passion, motivation, inspiration and guts to put these two interests together to start a school that is now inspiring hundreds of students and becoming a vital part of this community.”

When Montgomery first started talking about mixing her passions to form SANCA, most friends and family were skeptical at first.

“Every single one of my friends told me after the fact that they thought I was unhinged, but I was just seized by this idea,” says Montgomery. “And nine months after we hatched the plan we opened with five students. By the end of that first week we had nine!”

“I don’t think I thought she was loopy, although I don’t know that I quite envisioned SANCA as it has become” says Liu. “But I was inspired by her idea of offering alternative types of activity to kids who might not be suited for traditional sports and to use circus to help kids who might be overweight.”

There were sacrifices — time with family, money, energy.

“I had a book club but I had to ditch a few things when this started,” she admits with some sadness. “My time is pretty much filled with working at the clinic, being here and being a mom.

Montgomery and Johnson both worked for no pay for the first two years after the school opened. But within a year they had 75 students, and today SANCA boasts 750 students and more than 30 staff — expert instructors and professional performers in everything from trapeze to tightrope walking to juggling and more. While helping kids meet their personal best was a big motivation, the school has always served adults as well. SANCA has given many adults the chance to follow a childhood or even a crazy middle-age dream of participating in the circus, whether it is to play or perform.

“Jo asked me to join the SANCA board when she was getting the school started. I was working on childhood obesity issues and so we had that mission in common,” recalls Liu. “But personally, I had been taking yoga for years but it was scary for me to do handstands. Putting all my weight upside down on my hands — it didn’t seem possible. So I also decided to enroll as a student in SANCA’s adult acrobatics classes. Jo and Chuck were the most amazing teachers. It was such a gift; they really believed in me, made me believe in myself and my abilities, and soon I was doing handstands.”

Eleven-year-old Kirkland resident Naomi Marteeny is also doing things she and her mother never thought possible. Naomi had a stroke as an infant and it left her paralyzed on one side of her body. Constraint Induced Movement Therapy has helped her gain strength and mobility, but when the Marteenys met Montgomery they were convinced SANCA’s acrobatics training would help Naomi gain even more.

“Jo is 100 percent positive and in tune with the people she works with,” says Marna Marteeny, Naomi’s mom, and a former nuclear engineer who now homeschools her kids. “She is amazing. Her work with my daughter has been simply outstanding. Naomi can now grip the trapeze bar with her affected hand, and do handstands. Neither of these skills was possible before, nor did I even think they were ever possible. My daughter’s core strength improves every week, and her confidence in herself has soared working with Jo.”

As Naomi jumps on the trampoline and works through exercises with Montgomery, the petite teacher is a constant source of praise and careful attention to the details that either help or hinder a child’s success.

“How’s your wrist feeling? That’s an awesome handstand!”

Marna Marteeny is glowing about her daughter’s development. “She makes progress every week; it’s just shocking to me. I don’t know what drives her, but she sure knows what she is doing! She is so incredibly patient.”

Kindness. Ask just about anyone at SANCA and they will say that this alone is what drives Jo Montgomery.

“Jo is the kindest person I know,” says Johnson. “It’s her heart. She’s the most giving person I have ever known. She really cares about people. I see it in the way she interacts with people, the way she is a kind boss.”

Johnson, a strapping acrobat who hoists Montgomery to his shoulders as if she’s as light as a feather, says his partner frequently moves him.

“It makes me want to cry every time I watch her with students,” he says. “She believes in them. That’s what her work with Mikey is about — he was supposedly not going to have any use of his legs at all. But she believes in his ability and doesn’t treat him differently than other students, and look at him now.”

Ask Montgomery where the energy, heart and commitment come from and she points to her parents.

“When I was a kid my family moved to South Africa and lived in a mission hospital,” she says. “My parents are both good people. They were very giving and I guess I took a lot from them.”

Her father, now 93, recently came to see the school Montgomery and her colleagues have built over six years.

“He came and just sat and watched and he said he was proud of me,” she says. “I feel lucky, really. I had this great idea and it worked. Why did it seize my imagination the way it did? I don’t know really.

“I guess it was the right time,” she says.

“Acrobatics is play — you challenge your body working with another; you fall, you laugh and you try again! Fun in acrobatics is jumping on a trampoline, doing somersaults and cartwheels, things you did as a child. It is amazing to reconnect with that again,” says Liu. “Jo is my inspiration. I hope that I can impact individuals, families and a community the way she has in her work at Odessa Brown and SANCA. She is leaving a legacy.”

As if to prove that play and fun are a primary focus of her life and work, Montgomery celebrated her 50th birthday this year with a challenge not quite as big as SANCA but amazing nonetheless.

“She did 50 press handstands for her 50th birthday to raise money for SANCA,” says Marteeny. “That’s really, really hard.”

Cheryl Murfin is a freelance writer, owner of Nesting Instincts doula service, and was queen of the flying trapeze in many of her childhood dreams.

©Copyright 2010, Caliope Publishing Company