Janne Kouri

Re-Learning to Walk, Helping Others With Spinal Cord Injuries

Janne Kouri is a lifelong athlete who played football at Georgetown University. In 2006, during a break in play from a beach volleyball game with friends in Hermosa Beach, CA, he dove into the waves to cool off, hit his head on a sandbar and was instantly paralyzed. After being rescued by an off-duty EMT who was nearby, Janne was transported first to a local hospital, then to Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, where he would spend the next two months battling a life-threatening case of pneumonia, nearly dying multiple times. After regaining enough fitness to endure the trip, he was transported to the Frazier Rehab Institute at Jewish Hospital in Louisville, KY, where he would do intensive inpatient treatment and a special type of rehab called Locomotor training for six months under the care of Dr. Susie Harkema. After a further six month outpatient treatment regimen, Janne and his wife Susan moved back to Southern California.

Faced with the prospect of life-long rehabilitation, Janne and his wife immediately discovered a total lack of fitness facilities for people with disability and spinal cord injuries in California. Applying a healthy dose of determination, the Kouris founded NextStep Fitness, a fitness environment for individuals living with paralysis - where everyday fitness & wellness is available and supported in a state-of-the-art facility. Now, two years later, NextStep fitness is a community resource for individuals with disabilities, and looks to expand, offering similar services across the country. Janne himself has worked relentlessly towards his goal of eventually being able to walk independently, and has had some emotional successes, such as his first steps, on video, of walking after again after his injury.

What made you decide to start NextStep Fitness?

While I was in Louisville, it eventually occurred to me that at some point, you’ve got to go home.  My wife and I had started speaking about and doing research into facilities that met my needs that were close to our home in Southern California, and we immediately found out that there was no place that offered Locomotor training in California. There’s no facility that offered the same type of activity-based regimen that Frazier offered, so we immediately were kind of shocked and realized how drastic the problem was, once we started looking at the financials, we realized that setting up a solution was way too expensive of an endeavor for one person. At that point, we started thinking that if we can’t find the resources that I need, there must be hundreds of thousands of people with similar unmet needs. We started putting together a business plan and started working closely with Dr. Harkema and the Christopher Reeve Foundation NeuroRecovery Network, from there we raised money to open up NextStep Fitness.  It was selfish on one level, but there is a need and we want to help people out.

We’re working on getting people to understand what a drastic issue it is for the millions of people across the country with disabilities suffering from a lack of resources.  Paralysis is one thing, but it’s the secondary complications from paralysis that are life threatening.  Spending your days in a wheelchair, not being mobile, that’s really the problem.  From these types of injuries, there are a lot of related heart and blood pressure issues that occur, all of them life-threatening. Not walking is one thing, but the fitness and overall health beneath all of that is the big issue. There are so many other complications, and without the proper exercise, fitness and nutrition, it’s scary.

The video on NextStep’s website of you taking your first steps after your injury is pretty powerful.  What were you feeling when that happened?

Obviously it was an intense moment.  It was extremely motivational for me personally to know that all the hard work that I had put in with the help of my trainers, family, and friends was paying off. It was confirmation that I was taking steps in the right direction and making progress.  At the end of the day though, it’s only one step towards my goal of being able to walk independently again. 

It was an amazing feeling but I’ve yet to achieve my eventual goal. I’m only one of many people who feels the effects of the successes from this type of training, and it goes to prove that with proper resources, recovery is possible.  People, after suffering paralyzing or disabling injuries, can recover to live healthy and active lives. But they have to have the resources available to them and show relentless determination.

What are the challenges that NextStep Fitness- and the community of people it serves - face?

There are really two things.  First is the overall lack of resources for people with disabilities.  We created NextStep Fitness because we want to live normal lives, and as people with disabilities not feel like we’re doing all of our fitness, health and wellness work in a hospital or medical setting.  The thing is, facilities like ours just do not exist in communities around the country - they’re really few and far between, and there are literally hundreds of thousands of people in our country that suffer from the same lack of resources.  That’s the larger issue.

The second issue, related to NextStep as an organization, is the constant need for funding. No question, It’s difficult economic times, and without question our biggest challenge is sustaining the funding to not only keep NextStep Fitness open in Los Angeles, but also open new facilities in other communities around the country. We believe that the lack of services for people with disabilities and paralysis is a very serious problem, because people don’t have facilities available to them, and they don’t have the financial resources available to them to start their own versions of NextStep Fitness.

The solution, I believe, is a combination of help from businesses, foundations and governments.  I would love to open a branch of NextStep Fitness in every community out there that has a need, but can I do that alone?  Probably not.  I’m going to need help from those individual communities. Local communities need to take on the responsibility and commit to offer the health and wellness services so desperately needed by their disabled population.  We’ve found that people are interested - we just have to be relentless about it. 

Is there a single possession you’ve got that you feel particularly attached to?

I think it’s probably my tattoo on my right arm - it’s a Finnish word, “Sisu”.  Sisu is a spirit, something that lives inside of all Finnish people. It means courage and determination and never quitting in the face of adversity and most of all, never complaining. The sheer will to overcome any obstacle you’re faced with.  It’s an idea or belief that my father instilled in me - he passed away relatively recently - and it’s something I keep pretty close to my heart.  Thinking of Sisu helps me keep the strength of my father alive.