Yoga for Jocks

Jana Webb is an entrepreneur, athlete, writer, speaker, and media figure. Most importantly, she is the founder of JOGA, a unique yoga system designed to help athletes strengthen their mind and bodies, and keep them injury-free.

She had been enjoying career success as a media personality and actor when yoga was unexpectedly brought into her life. When she suffered severe injuries from a serious car accident, she was taught yoga as part of her rehabilitation. It healed her body and strengthened her mind, and Jana was hooked. Jana devoted herself to learning yoga, took as many classes as she could, and years later, trained in Ishta yoga in Japan. She merged her yoga practice and the development of breathing techniques and movements to complement the physical challenges of athletes, and became passionate about teaching yoga to everyone.

Jana worked towards the opportunity to become a yoga therapist for the Calgary Stampeders. As she went through the process of learning what her team needed from a yoga practice, she found herself making sense of postures that would benefit them, and what would deliver strength and conditioning for their movements.

All her hard work and pivots led to traction and success. Jana was so busy, she decided to offer a JOGA certification program, for which seven people signed up. Today, JOGA boasts of over 400 certified teachers.

In 2016, Jana was working with pro teams, she was certifying instructors, and she was at the top of her game. She was training athletes during a trip in the Dominican Republic, when she was in a near fatal accident—a cement truck crashed into her vehicle. Jana suffered a broken back and brain injuries, and risked paralysis. She was in intensive care for seven days before she was allowed to return home to Canada.

Jana had just signed the lease for the JOGA house, but was now looking at a long road of therapy and rehab. She felt the profundity of her survival and saw that she had come full circle: she was introduced to yoga through an accident, and here she was, saved from an accident by the core strength she built from the practice of yoga.

She worked hard to keep building the JOGA house from her hospital bed, with determination. “My first purpose was to create something for people who want to do yoga…I created a job which attracts a whole group of people that probably never do yoga, which is great. And now this accident taught me that what I do is really important in terms of teaching people about their body and being stronger because we just don’t know, right? And so now that I’ve gone through it, I have the second chance at life.

“I go into a room of people and I say, there’s no excuses—be accountable for your body. For your mind, this is your gift, so the second accident has fuelled me to not only inspire people but to really like force people to be accountable.”

Jana takes her practice, her story, and her business, and speaks to thousands to people as an influencer to motivate them to be courageous, to be stronger in their minds and bodies, and to find their true calling. For Jana, nothing is an accident, and we are all where we are supposed to be.

MORE stories