Whether climbing the backyard cherry tree as a child, teaching ancient Hawaiian games to students as a physical education instructor at Kamehameha Schools or leading classes in Korean dance as a busy retiree, nothing has ever moved Mary Jo Freshley more than the joy of movement itself.

“I believe in movement,” says Freshley, 81. “Sports like football or basketball you can do for a limited time, but I’ve always been interested in ways of moving your body that you can experience over a lifetime. I don’t care about winning or losing. I care about, ‘Did you have fun?’”

Freshley was born and raised in Ohio. A self-described tomboy, she chafed at the way popular “boys” sports were modified to keep girls of her day safe from overexertion or unseemly displays of strenuous activity.

“Half-court and only three girls could shoot? It was boring,” Freshley said. “So I just played with the boys.”

At Bowling Green University, Freshley found a course of study that perfectly suited her interest in healthful, enjoyable activity, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education with an emphasis on physical education.

After graduation Freshley landed a job with Kamehameha Schools and moved to Hawaii in 1961.

“I wanted to see how far from Ohio I could get,” she quipped.

At Kamehameha Freshley pushed to expand PE to include kindergarten to grade 3, introduced jogging and jump rope programs, collaborated with teachers in art and science to develop new approaches to PE, expanded the intramural program and helped usher the school into the era of Title IX.

Outside of school, Freshley indulged her passion for learning about other cultures, enrolling in Filipino, Japanese, Okinawan, Javanese and Korean dance classes and studying Filipino and Japanese language.

She was especially taken with Korean dance, which she explored under the tutelage of Halla Pai Huhm in the early 1970s.

“You can learn a lot about a culture through dance and movement,” Freshley said. “There are certain ways of expressing and communicating things, saying thank you, responding to cultural cues that are all part of it.

“Some of that gets lost these days,” she said. “‘Gangnam Style’? Oh, heavens! That’s the bunny hop! We got over that years ago.”

Freshley retired from Kamehameha after more than 30 years and has spent a wonderfully unrestful retirement serving as director and lead instructor of the Halla Pai Huhm Korean Dance Studio on King Street. She also holds a weekly class at the University of Hawaii.

“It keeps me out of trouble,” Freshley said, chuckling.

For more information about the Halla Pai Huhm Korean Dance Studio, call 949-2888.

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Reach Michael Tsai at mtsai@staradvertiser.com.