Join Team Jo Anne to Beat Breast Cancer

Hi, I am Suzanne Pipho. In January 2023, my close friend, Jo Anne Cox Bennett, was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her condition is such that she needs to undergo a mastectomy as soon as possible. Her surgery is scheduled for the 2nd week of March 2023.

Jo Anne Cox Bennett grew up in a town in Northern California and is known as both a high-level athlete and a professional-level coach. She is also a mother, daughter, sister, aunt, teacher, designer, artist, author, entrepreneur, and friend to many. Her kindness and passion for life inspire many. She is quick to laugh and uplifts everyone around her.

Jo Anne’s medical condition is complicated by another medical condition, hypermobility Ehler’s Danlos Syndrome. Her healing journey will take many months and require several types of treatments. Jo Anne needs help paying for medical and living expenses. Also, she wishes to support her Son as he finishes his last year of high school. She faces a long, painful, difficult journey.

Please consider joining her team and supporting her financially. Anything would help!

Thank you!

Sincerely,

Suzanne

P.S. Here’s more detailed information about Jo Anne’s amazing life so far…

From a very young age, Jo Anne has had a natural talent for swimming and other sports. She has excelled on multiple athletic teams and as a gymnast and swimmer. She held many swimming records from the age of 6 until graduation from UC Davis in 1995. During those races, she often heard her supporters cheering, “Go Jo!”. Those cheers helped her immensely during those races and that phrase is her personal motto to persevere in life.

She attended Las Lomas High School in Walnut Creek, CA, from 1986-1990. At that time, female athletes were ridiculed and harassed for simply wanting to play water polo. With no opportunity to play this sport, she chose to participate in varsity cross country, soccer, and swimming. She broke several records during her high school career, was a member of the All American 200 Medley Relay Record Breaking Team, and qualified and finaled at CIF/NCS all 4 years.

As a student at U.C. Davis, she earned a BS in Environmental Design with a minor in Rhetoric and Communication. She swam for 3 years and then finally had the opportunity to play women’s water polo. She switched exclusively to water polo under the tutelage of Coach Jamey Wright.

At that time her academic focus became designing aquatic wear for athletes. The result of her senior project became the first exclusive women’s water polo swimwear. While working as an intern for Speedo from 1995-96, her design was turned into a marketable product that is still used 28 years later! The basic model with the zipper was worn at the 2000 Olympics and is now just considered a women’s polo suit today. The newly formed USAWP Hall of Fame has expressed interest in archiving her groundbreaking work and the original suit designs in their new museum in Irvine, CA.

After earning her college degree, Jo Anne enrolled in graduate school at U.C. Davis. She earned single-subject teaching credentials in Art, Health, PE and Speech. Also, she earned a Master’s in Education with an emphasis on Cross-cultural Teaching. While studying for these advanced degrees, she also discovered yoga.

She then completed a yoga certification and subsequently wrote a thesis on “The effects of Yoga on children with ADHD”. This led her to some amazing discoveries. Essentially, she cracked the code to finding “the zone” quickly and effortlessly. She used this knowledge to develop the SwimMER Method (established in 2008).

In her SwimMER Method, each pattern is its own Motion Efficiency Routine - MER language. This set of techniques helps swimmers and water polo players perform at their peak while preventing injuries and replenishing the oxygen supply continuously, allowing the participant to maintain a focused head space. This system is a combination of yoga, Pilates and gymnastics to help aquatic athletes find more core power while correcting and creating new patterns on land. With practice, these techniques become a rotating mental checklist that the athlete uses while swimming.

The SwimMER Method is adaptable and modifiable to improve performance in almost any activity - from aquatics to golf to soccer or even painting artwork or housework. A MER can be developed and will enhance the participant's performance by engaging the entire body, in a balanced, harmonious, and focused manner leading to maximum performance.

Jo Anne has used the MER Method while coaching swimmers and water polo players for many years. As a coach, each of her athletes is aware that she knows them and values their worth, and this mutual respect develops deep connections. She tells her athletes that the ultimate goal is for them to no longer need her, or a coach, as they have developed their own mental coach via the MER.

In addition, She has worked with the USA Water Polo Olympic Development program to streamline the vocabulary and the movement patterns on land that are the sport’s foundation. She continued this work with many teams and clubs, from Sacramento City College, to Lamorinda water polo club, Orinda Aquatics, Orinda Country Club, and eventually at UC Berkeley from 2015-19.

If you want to buy a shirt with an edited version of the above design, please go to: https://www.customink.com/fundraising/gojo

It is only available until 3/21/2023!

JoAnne channels her creativity in multiple areas. In addition to coaching and personal training, she was a k-12 art teacher and transitioned into a commissioning artist many years ago. Her paintings reflect her love of water in a somewhat abstract form and express the importance of loving relationships with all beings including the universe. Her art reflects the beauty and love within her life. She generously has donated her time to create many athletic teams’ identity designs as well as donating many pieces over the years to fundraising auctions for causes she believes in deeply.

Now, Jo Anne is the person in need of help. In addition to breast cancer, Jo Anne also has a condition called hypermobility Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (hEDS). Complications due hEDS causes muscle spasms and also creates challenges to heal in general, especially her skin. To help improve her healing process, she plans to use her SwimMER Method techniuqes.

Not knowing the future, she has enlisted the help of an amazing videographer to permanently document her healing journey. She is turning her journey into a bigger project, and they are beginning to document the swimmer method’s ability to help her heal more quickly post-surgery. She is requesting funding to continue throughout the surgeries and rehabilitation. In the end, she hopes to use her personal experience to help future breast cancer survivors heal.

It is tough to watch a loved one go through this. Many of you have experienced it or cared for someone with it and know the stressors. Financial worries while trying to heal from an invasive surgery are counterproductive. Therefore, the hope is that by increasing relaxation type activities, Jo Anne can let all that energy go towards healing and having a fund will also afford her opportunity to feel some control and the ability to order meals and other services that will make a significant impact on her daily life.

Thank you!!! :-)