In-Depth 2022 Post #2
By Julianne Moseley
My mentor, Mike Giannelli, started skiing in Whistler at a very young age. He did the ski school program there for a very long time. After this, he joined the Whistler Mountain Ski Club, moving from learning ski technique and control, to diving deeper into how to race well. He gained more experience in racing in this program and loved the sport. From there, at an older age, Mike made the BC Ski Team, and later on, qualified for the Canadian Ski Team. He said it was incredible, because he went from racing people around him, to racing those around the country, to racing many people all around the world. It was a great experience for him because he was able to travel all over the world for various competitions. He became very independent at a very young age because of this.
Mike Giannelli says that often, his experiences were determined by the people around him. If he had a supportive coach and good team members, he had a lot of fun, which happened for most of his skiing career. I agree that it is important to have a good group a people around you to enjoy what you are doing, and I think this ties into mentoring strategies. I think he has learned many of his mentoring strategies from his coaches throughout the years.
The knowledge he has shared with me, has helped me to see some of the strategies he uses to guide me through my struggles. One thing I notice, is he is very positive, and continues to tell me that I am working hard and making progress. But while doing so, he is not afraid to tell me what I need to work on. I like this style because he isn’t breaking me down with harsh feedback, but he is still helping me progress without damaging my confidence. If I ever become a mentor for someone else or give someone a piece of feedback, I hope to bring this style of teaching into my feedback. My uncle is also great at telling me verbally as well as showing me visual representations. He has given me tips and drills verbally but has also taken videos of himself doing these drills to show me what they are supposed to look like. This is also a great facilitation strategy as it works well for anyone who is a visual learner.
From my mentor, I have gained a bunch of knowledge on different aspects of skiing. So far, most of the knowledge I have gained from him has to do with technique. We have talked about keeping my top half separate from the bottom half of my body in terms of turning. What I mean by this is my legs should be doing the turning while my hips and chest should always face down the hill. I recently practiced this drill on the hill, and it is way harder than I expected it to be. A large struggle of mine that he has been trying to help me through, is learning how to carve my skis. I have watched videos and tried drills to fix my skiing technique. But it’s hard to change my form after skiing for 12 years. Carving involves using the edges of the ski to turn, so I really must lean into my turns more to get onto my edges. Carving will help my go faster than sliding my skis on the snow, which is how I turn now. I recently called my mentor
regarding this issue. Last time I went skiing, I sent him a video of my carving. During the call, he explained to me that my legs were too close together in the video and I need a wider stance to be able to lean on my edges more easily. He also told me that it might be easier to start on a very gentle slope that is less steep. To carve, I need to roll my ankles and knees, moving from edge to edge with each turn. I will continue to work on carving when I am on the hill. Hopefully, I can overcome this obstacle within a few weeks of practice.
My main goal at this point in the project, is to get used to carving so I can continue on with other aspects of skiing. I can’t wait to dive deeper into the mechanics of ski racing and follow my progress as I go!
Below is a video of me trying to carve: