Grandpa's Morning Workout

Li Heng, 65, performs a handstand on the parallel bars
while working out with a group of retirees at Ritan Park
in Beijing, China, Tuesday, June 11, 2008. (AP Photo)

The seed of TeamVideoRoom.com was planted 15 years ago and a world away when I was teaching at China’s Shanghai Sports Institute, a 4-year college that trains sport administrators, coaches and physical education teachers.

I supervised physical education majors during their required internship teaching high school gym classes. I decided to videotape each intern as they taught their first class so we could review the footage later.

One of my interns, a trained gymnast, decided to show off a bit after finishing his formal class by demonstrating a handstand on the parallel bar. The videotape showed the young students in the class clapping and cheering as the teacher-intern executed his moves.

As the camcorder lens zoomed out, however, an adjacent parallel bar came into view. My heart stopped.

Two high school students from the class were swinging their bodies back and forth wildly in an effort to do a handstand just like their teacher. Out of their teacher’s sight, these students, who were not even able to do a handstand on flat ground, were trying to throw their body to an upside down position on a metal parallel bar 5 feet above a hard-dirt ground. Luckily, the class ended before the two high school students injured themselves.

Later, I reviewed the video footage with the intern. Before I said anything, he could clearly see for himself how he had lost control of the class and how close his students had come to injuring themselves. While I could have lectured him about the incident, viewing the footage conveyed the message far more quickly and with greater impact than words alone. Fifteen years later, that incident still stands as a reminder to me of the invaluable role video film study plays in teaching and training.

After earning a master’s degree in sports administration from Florida State University, I spent 12 years as a successful Web developer in the San Francisco Bay Area.

I believe that recent technological advances – including the ability to share online videos and the advent of social networking – make this an exciting time to advance the coaching of youth sports. That is why I founded TeamVideoRoom.com, a Web-based game film study service that combines my skills in Web development and my background in sports education.

There is no "silver bullet" in coaching. There are only many fundamentals – such as game IQ – that coaches work on in every practice and every game. Game film study is a proven coaching tool for game IQ development. Many coaches have games taped and show players the footage afterwards, sometimes organizing team meetings or creating DVDs to share among the players. Some coaches may upload footage to Youtube.com. But these solutions have serious limitations that hinder regular use of game film study, depriving players a key element of the game learning experience.

TeamVideoRoom.com is my answer to the pain points. By simplifying the process of posting and reviewing game footage online, TeamVideoRoom will hopefully enable more coaches to integrate regular film study into their coaching and get more "Aha!" moments from players.

Yudong

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