My healing yoga journey

A story of how yoga changed my life

I stepped on the path of yoga not by choice, it was a necessity.

Chapter 1. Russia: The Spark

Yoga was always in the stars for me. I was only 13 years old and lived in Siberia, Russia, when picked up my first book about yoga – ‘Yoga in Ten Lessons,’ by J.M. Dechanet. It was more than 20 years ago, before internet and yoga were a mainstream. I remember locking my room, lighting a patchouli incense stick, and reading every word of this book. I tried to repeat each posture to perfection, my passion for a correct alignment stayed with me through the life. My favorite was savasana, of course, the corpse pose, I absolutely loved to relax my body gradually to the point of feeling of not having a body, staying present, experiencing the moment. Unfortunately, back then, practices like that were not fully understood and accepted. So, it was impossible for a young girl to find any support nor inspiration in this field. 

Chapter 2. USA: The First Pain

I came back on a yoga mat much later when I moved to New York City in my early twenties. I was stunned by variety of options: Hatha Yoga, Iyengar Yoga, Vinyasa Yoga, Power Yoga, Hot yoga. There were yoga classes for old and young, injured, and healthy. So, naturally, I tried it all. I couldn’t get enough of it. 

One day, my teacher suggested: “You are so bendy! Why don’t you become a yoga teacher?” Bendy I was, but in all the wrong places, which was very hard to trace in a 20-something-year-old body. On the surface, I was able to do almost any yoga asana and would stretch like a rubber band. As time was passing, I noticed an echo of a lower back pain, that gradually would become more and more noticeable. Practically, every time I would come out of an intense back bend, like a wheel or camel pose, I would have a pinching pain in my lower back, I couldn’t explain. I wouldn’t tell anyone; I would ignore it. Yoga can’t be bad, right? My teachers were so excited to have a flexible student, they would twist and bend me into a deeper asana practice every class. Eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore, the pain started to accompany me even during the time off the yoga mat. 

I did an unthinkable – I went to a doctor. After getting back the results of x-ray and MRI tests, he was shocked to find a 9-mm hernia in my lumbar spine. He exclaimed: “How are you still walking?!” He did what all doctors do, gave me an option: surgery or pills. “And NO YOGA under any circumstance,” he said. On top of it, he sent my extremely stretched body to take mild physical therapy classes, that were a pure torture, because my yoga-addicted muscles were asking for more. 

I refused it all. Yoga, by definition, can’t harm my body, but bad teachers can. As it turned out, all this time, while in in back bending asanas, I was bending in one vertebra, instead of stretching my entire back, chest, and legs! Here was my answer – to heal myself, I needed to become a yoga teacher I have been looking for.

Chapter 3. India: Answers

​

Without further due, I signed up for a Yoga Teacher Training with Abhinam yoga school in Goa, India. On the first day, I approached the head teacher with my issue: “Can you show me how to come in and out of the wheel pose without pain?” Yog Namito gently placed his hands on my lower back, I bent backwards, he pushed between my shoulder blades to help me send my chest forward. Then, he held me below the knees to pull them in the opposite direction, it made my lower back come to a neutral state. After a minute, he helped me to come up. Miracle! I felt zero pain. The magic of adjustment and alignment worked! I realized - I’m in a right place.

Since then, I have been deeply involved in studying asanas, pranayamas, meditation, yoga philosophy, anatomy, and physiology. Iyengar’s ‘Light on Yoga’ became my Bible. I got obsessed with back pain issues and dedicated my life to research and healing practices. I traveled close and far, met with shamans and high-end surgeons and couldn’t wait to share this knowledge with people all over the world.

The EnerJane project has been born and my first yoga studio in Upper Manhattan, New York City opened its doors for all curious minds to study healing magic of yoga.

Chapter 4. Mexico: 

My healing journey and search for painless life, brought me to a charming village called Mazunte on a Mexican beach. I instantly fell in love and few years later I packed up my cat and an entire life in Manhattan in two suitcases and took a flight to the great unknown. 

For the past 4 years I have been living a dream life in a breath-taking beach town, Puerto Escondido. I have been teaching group and private yoga classes in my yoga studio, called - Sunset Yoga with EnerJane. My Healing Community online is growing every day, as I offer several free online classes as well as teach private clients all over the world via Zoom. I believe this knowledge should be available and accessible to everyone. My students range from 3 to 83, anyone can experience benefits of the natural healing path.

Now, it is my mission to share this precious knowledge, because against all doctor’s prognosis, I am not only walking freely, but I, in fact, am pain-free. I do understand that I’m most likely bound to this path till the rest of my life, but I chose my morning hour of yoga over a surgery on any day.