Mary Huff Stevenson

For most of my adult life, I was a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Boston. I retired and am now in my encore career as a fitness instructor focusing on older adults and people with physical limitations.

This was an unlikely path for me to take. As a kid, I was never an athlete, never took dancing lessons, and was mostly a bookworm, although I always enjoyed dancing at parties. I did not exercise regularly during my 20s, 30s or 40s, but joined a gym as I approached 50. I worked out with free weights but after lifting a suitcase the wrong way and injuring my shoulder, I had to stop.

Out of boredom, I walked into an aerobics class . . . and I was enchanted. It was a class in the Nia Technique® and although I was getting a good workout, it didn’t feel like I was working out. It felt like I was dancing. And that’s where the seeds of my encore career were first planted.

I knew from my years of teaching economics that a good way to really understand something is to teach it to someone else. I got trained to teach Nia, an eclectic form of exercise that borrows from martial arts, healing arts and dance arts, including the free-spirited dancing that Isadora Duncan might have done.

I realized that I wanted to work with older adults and got further training to teach Zumba and other techniques adapted for an older population. I now teach at senior centers, upscale retirement communities and senior public housing projects. And I love it all.

My students tell me how much they enjoy the classes, and they also tell me about their lives, their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Many of my students are in their 80s, some in their late 80s, yet they look past their ailments and come to class regularly.

I think I am helping older adults remain physically and mentally agile. I know for sure that one senior who is benefitting from all this new physical and mental activity is me. Although this transition can be read as a story of dramatic change, it is also a story of continuity: I’ve been teaching my entire adult life — it’s just that the subject matter is different now.

My encore career offers me all of the things I loved when I taught economics, but now I don’t have to grade exams!