Jo McDonald

Jo hails from the Bluegrass State, where small towns with no sidewalks offer few opportunities for a healthy, active lifestyle. Growing up from a sedentary child into a morbidly obese adult, Jo decided this was not the life she wanted to live. She made one small, sustainable change at a time, and in the process, she discovered Pilates. Pilates was instrumental in correcting the dysfunctional movement patterns in her joints from years of carrying so much weight around. 

Jo eventually decided to transition from her office job to a full time pilates teacher, becoming one of the students in the inaugural class of trainees for Integrated Balance, under the guidance of Montse Cosin and Kristen Veltkamp, where she went on to mentor new instructors, facilitate teacher training and organize workshops at her studio in Louisville until she and her husband picked up and moved to Portland in 2014. 

Jo was also a faculty member with the Louisville Ballet School, teaching conditioning classes for dancers as young as 7 and as advanced as company members. Helping dancers learn to balance their bodies and enjoy dancing with less pain was particularly rewarding. 

She loves working with people from all sorts of backgrounds to develop functional movement patterns to continue an active lifestyle, increase athletic achievement or to recover from childbirth.

Since arriving in Portland, Jo has been teaching full-time, working with a diverse population of students. Jo finds joy in the problem-solving aspect of pilates teaching, figuring out how best to get each individual body to understand the everyday application of the principles of pilates, as well as instilling the joy of movement with ease in each body. In 2017, Jo co-founded the 500-hour teacher training program for Cascadia Pilates. 

In 2022, Jo transitioned to teaching at her home studio, and at Body Mechanics, in SE Portland. She continues to find inspiration in helping people move well.