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About Me

Who Am i?

My name is Valeriia Manchak- Jensen and I am the owner of Infinite Edge and Power. I grew up as a multisport athlete and excelled in youth, collegiate, and professional sports. This broad experience is very important to my approach and furthered my knowledge base when developing athletes. I also travelled and trained in many countries on different continents which allowed me to see and experience vastly different coaching and training styles. My accomplishments include being a 4-time National boxing champion, World and Europe boxing champion, best technical boxer at 2014 World Cup, and most technical boxer at the European Boxing Championship, 2015. I won 6 medals from Goju-riu World Karate Championships in 2015 with the Ukrainian national team as well. In hockey, I played youth hockey with travel trips to the US and Canada. I also played in Russia, Europe, and played prep hockey in Canada after which I attended college in the US where I obtained a Master’s degree in public policy while leading my team to win collegiate championships. I also made the All-Tournament and All- Conference teams and moved on to play professional hockey with team Adidas and the PWHPA. It was an amazing experience to play with best hockey players from US and Canada.

My Story

My hockey career followed a unique path since I did not play hockey from 14 till 19 due to lack of opportunity for girls hockey and financial considerations. I had grown up playing hockey and had a scholarship to Shattuck-Saint Mary’s but was not able to attend due to visa problems.

When I was 15, I started my first year at Law school and my brother brought me to a boxing gym. The Coach at the gym only worked with male professional boxers at the time and was not interested in training girls. He saw me working and showed me a couple drills and I loved it. He changed his mind about coaching girls after I told him ‘’ I am not like all the girls.” He smiled, agreed to train me, and in 3 months we won our first National Championship.  I was still missed hockey, but I kept busy preparing for the world championships, excelling at law school, and working. At the age of 19 I decided to return to hockey. I had not put on skates for almost 5 years, but my boxing had taught me a lot of things that made me a better hockey player in the long-term.

The skills I gained from boxing are quick reaction times, fast decision making, great cardio, agility, explosiveness, emotional control under pressure and the ability to read opponents as fast as possible. Another thing that helped me to make a smooth come back is the Ukrainian Skating school training which is unique and has helped many NHL and college athletes to succeed with edge control/power skating training. Boxing workouts proved that not only weights, but drills can increase your strengths, agility, explosiveness, and the decision – making process. I like to focus on mobility and hip strengths since I believe this is crucial to building stride through improving the power/length of the stride.

I use the above experiences and skills to work with athletes on lower body strength, explosiveness, agility, decision – making, and quick reaction under pressure. I help kids to find and push their limits which fosters mental toughness and discipline which aids them in multiple aspects of life. I love teaching athletes to be comfortable where they are uncomfortable, challenge every practice, and teach them to work them hard. Success, in my opinion, is 1 % talent and 99 % of hard work.

Details matter and I focus on them, I like perfection in my coaching. Edge control and power skating is my area of expertise; without proper edge control and power skating, athletes will not be able to play a high-level game.  I believe that my unusual experience and story make me a unique development coach that can take any athlete to the next level with hard work, dedication, and training.