Alyona Alyokhina: the struggle for recovery

Alyona has been active all her life, she just couldn’t sit still. She was best at sports. However, her love of punk rock culture and skateboarding, which in essence overlaps with snowboarding, once led Alyona to a ski slope. There the girl saw snowboarders for the first time and, without even trying to stand on such a board, immediately realized: “It’s mine”. Time passed and the cherished dream came true: Alyona held her first snowboard in her hands.

It is commonly believed that it is too late to start a professional sports career at the age of 17. But, as we know, there are exceptions to every rule. At the age of 17 Alyona Alyokhina took part in her first competitions and immediately showed results. Everything that not so long ago it was difficult to even imagine: victory at the championship of Moscow, then Russia, sponsorship, the appearance of a coach and getting into the national team. Within 2 years I had made a huge way from a beginner to a pro rider. But four years ago in California something happened that literally in a split second divided Alyona’s life into “before” and “after”. While performing a snowboarding trick, she fell and suffered a serious spinal injury.

Struggling to recover: “I can’t imagine any other way”.

Alyona Alyokhina: “I didn’t feel very well that day and I had been sick for a long time before that. I realized, in principle, that it was better not to skate. I even untied my shoes and decided to finish. But then I saw the sun and the mountains and thought that I should try. And on my first or second attempt, I fell: on a trick I’ve done a million times. Not on something risky, on the most, you could say, stable. Something went wrong. I guess my poor health had something to do with it. I might as well have tripped on the threshold, for example.”

After the unfortunate fall followed a terrible diagnosis: doctors said with certainty that the girl will no longer be able to walk. Alyona never left the desire not to accept what had happened, she refused to believe that what had happened to her was even possible. She realized that she was not ready to accept anything and would fight for her recovery to the end.

“I’m a little surprised when people say, “Oh, you’re so good, you didn’t give up!” and I always reply, “And I don’t think I had a choice.” I was not satisfied with such a life, I had to recover, I wanted it very much, and that’s why I gave all my strength to rehabilitation. In the situation with my injury, it was very important for me to do everything I could to be able to say for sure: “I did everything from my side. It was impossible to do more.” Four years later, I still continue to do everything possible for my recovery, because I can’t imagine any other way.”

Alyona still works out on special exercise machines every day and prioritizes exercise. For the first two and a half years, the girl spent all her energy and absolutely all her time on therapy – such was her attitude. She tried different rehabilitation technologies. After a few years, Alyona is still practicing at home, but now she tries not to focus absolutely all her attention on it.

“I try to treat the situation like this: all people have their own routine, someone takes the child to school in the morning, someone goes to the gym, someone loses weight, so I try to see my daily activities as something normal, not to whine and not to feel sorry for myself. But I do my best every time and work at the same time(the girl teaches foreign languages via Skype – “Championship” note). I used to count how many thousands of days of therapy I had in my account. Now I haven’t counted for a long time. What is important for me is that I still continue to notice some changes, albeit minor, which means that there is still some benefit from my sessions.

And the result, contrary to doctors’ predictions, is there. After the injury, Alyona has already regained three muscles that allow her to pull her leg up, pedal and much more. They continue to grow stronger, and one has even almost recovered to the state of a healthy person’s muscle, although initially it was not there at all. What’s more, sensation in her legs continues to return to the girl: “Here I see progress all the time, meaning I have more and more sensation in my legs. For example, I can feel every time I bend my knee now, although before there was nothing at all. The sensitivity is noticeably changing. Alas, it has not yet, figuratively speaking, seeped outwards, but recovery should come from within.”

On the changes: a little less perfectionism, a little more spontaneity and a love for people

Now Alyona is constantly contacted by people who were traumatized after her case and know the whole story. The girl admitted that she recalls with horror her first time after the fall and strives to alleviate the condition of other people who have a hard road to recovery. She always shares her experience with others and can spend hours on the phone talking to someone who needs help. Alyona knows more than anyone else that socializing with people is a good source of strength.

“The energy I get from people is very important, and at all stages of this journey it has been very valuable for me to realize that a lot of people want to be around me. Not even to help, but just to be around me. It was like each of these people were taking away a piece of my pain both physically and emotionally. Feeling the people around me was very valuable. I really enjoy socializing and the emotional charge is important.”

In addition, Alyona said that recently in Museon Park there was a lecture within the educational project BOARDSPEAKERS with the support of Roxy and Quiksilver, where she told her story. Roxy brand has been supporting the girl for 10 years, it is her second family and mutual love, which she found thanks to snowboarding. As for her attitude to life, Alyona admitted that she has moved away from the perfectionism she used to have and has become more spontaneous and easy-going.

“Apparently, I used to have some clear goals and plans of my own, and I was going in that direction, and then something so huge came along and blocked my way. I tried to climb over it somehow, to cut through the tunnel, and then I realized that if on this path I would bump into the obstacle and only into it, if I would not look for a way around, I would not go anywhere. I decided to go around. I feel like it’s a flexibility, an acceptance: yes, it didn’t work out exactly the way I wanted it to, but it worked out differently, and that’s not a bad thing either, it turns out.”

“Bittersweet”: life in two countries

Currently, Alyona lives on two cities: Moscow and Huntington Beach in California. And to describe the state of a person who is torn between two countries, two to-do lists, two social circles, we remembered the English expression “bittersweet”, which means “bitter-sweet” – very mixed feelings.

“It’s a complete feeling of dividing life into two homes. And one life is not so easy to arrange! In mine, however, everything is multiplied by two, including our usual domestic difficulties. All the perks are double, but so are all the inconveniences.”

One major inconvenience is that Alyona flies from country to country with expensive and unique trainers. It is impossible to have them in several copies, so the girl has to disassemble them herself and transport them in several suitcases. But despite such difficulties, Alyona is happy that her life is now connected with California. After all, this is another dream, the realization of which she considered almost impossible. In 2008, Roxy invited Alyona to Canada for a shoot, and after the event, she visited the company’s headquarters in Huntington Beach, the city where she now lives.

“When I first flew to LA, I thought the place was ‘overrated’, meaning ‘overrated’. All the songs about California, the pictures seemed like some kind of fake, and it wasn’t very clear to me why this place was talked about so much. But the day I went to the office where the event was organized for us, I hit the beach in Huntington Beach and realized that California is “underrated” – underrated. I imagined it was cool here, but I couldn’t imagine it being this perfect.”

Philanthropy, books, music and butterflies in her stomach

One of the most important parts of Alyona’s life was and still is charity work. Even before her injury, she volunteered with the Gift of Life Foundation and was part of the Dr. Clown organization.

“I tried going to the hospital to see children as a clown after my injury (I was put in a baby stroller where my clown partner wheeled me around the hospital and I was the baby with a pacifier who was making mayhem behind his back, it was very funny). Really, I think I still didn’t have enough energy and strength at that point… I mean it was great, but I think I still need to get a little stronger mentally and physically to carry more energy with me there. I miss it all very much and I’m really looking forward to my return.”

Now in her free time Alyona tries to devote herself to the things she was drawn to before, but simply did not have the energy for. Studying, family, snowboarding, charity – it seemed that there was nothing more to do. Now the girl pays a lot of attention to reading books, and, according to her, this is exactly what she had no time for before, but what she really likes to do. And with music everything worked out in childhood: music school, piano, red diploma. But Alyona believes that she never had any special talent, so she also treated music in a sporting way – with perseverance. “I believe that persistence and diligence are often more important than talent.

I felt like every minute I devoted to something else was stolen from my rehab. It seemed then that I would be robbing myself of what little chance I had to recover if I was distracted by anything else.

A year and a half ago, Alyona made a promise to herself on New Year’s Day: to allow herself to practice music, at least 10 minutes a day. It is music that gives her butterflies in her stomach, like snowboarding once did. And those butterflies make her happy. Progressing musically, like any forward movement, is a joy for her. “I got out of the shower one day and wrote a song. Although I did not think, had no idea that I could do it!” – shared Alyona.

The video can be seen on Anastasiya Barysheva’s Youtube channel.

This week she has already released her second song. The first of them the girl completely created by herself, the second is a joint work with a musician from California.

Book of Lifehacks: “how to survive”.

Speaking about motivation, Alyona immediately said with a smile that she has a whole collection of tips, which she would call a book on survival. After all, day after day the girl tried to survive, and it was not easy for her. Now she can give advice that will motivate everyone. The first thing Alyona advises in a difficult situation is to remember that it will not always be like this, no matter how trivial it sounds. Life is characterized by imbalance, some days – everything, some days – nothing. That’s the way it works. And it is very important in the most difficult times to be able to mentally and emotionally get out of the difficult “here and now”, to remember about this very imbalance and warm yourself with this thought of inevitable (!!!) changes for the better. In the meantime, just bear it with clenched teeth, knowing for sure that it’s not forever, and save yourself with this thought.

In addition, Alyona believes that it is very important to pay due attention to positive emotions. And if you think about it, we really do so often dwell on failures and losses, keep talking about them, and leave good emotions in the shadows.

“We tend to whine a lot, like when we lose something. We’ll whine about it 20 times, even if it was a small thing. But if we suddenly find it in our bag, we’ll just say, ‘Oh, that’s it, here it is. Great!” We don’t say another word about it. And it’s so illogical. Why is it that we are always so fixated on loss, but we are not in the habit of replaying the joy of having found something. That is, we choose to experience the negative emotion over and over again, but the positive emotion only one short time. It’s weird, isn’t it?”

Now Alyona knows by personal example that you can’t completely eradicate negative emotions, but you can teach yourself to be more happy about little things. After all, what we already have is already a lot, and the main thing is how and from what angle we look at it.