practice feedback: e-mail and video commentary

[Russ]

When I was growing up (1960's), my father was a drama professor. He used to watch rehearsals and dictate comments to an assistant. Then immediately after the rehearsal, he would go over his notes with the actors. It has occurred to me that providing thios type of feedback for athletes can be useful.

This season I've had about a dozen vaulters, most of whom are beginners, a couple of intermediates, and only 2 with 2 years of experience. This is a high school program.

I don't know about you, but I have a very hard time (no matter how hard I try) to spot pole vault errors in real time. The action occurs so fast, I can only notice one or two things, and I miss a lot. So this season, I've tried to take a lot of video of practices, not just meets. I've found that I can spot problems much better by slowing down the video and going over it frame-by-frame, at home after practice. Then, I've been taking notes for each vaulter, and e-mailing them my notes. I also print out a hard copy and bring it to practice the next day in case they have not checked their e-mail. I also e-mail a copy to the head coaches (girls and boys).

Last night another idea hit me. I went down to my local Radio Shack and bought a cheap microphone and the adaptors necessary to plug the mic into my VCR. I have 2 VCR's set up (so that I can make copies). I plugged the "video" cord from my camcorder into the the VCR and I plugged the mic into the "audio" of the VCR. Then I recorded the practice session directly from the camcorder into the VCR, making a copy of the tape from the camcorder, slowing down the action, freezing frames, going frame-by-frame, backing up the tape when I wanted, etc., while I spoke into the mic, giving feedback on each jump.

I'm making copies for the vaulters so that they can watch the practice video with voice-over commentary. It occurs to me that this has got to be useful. It's time-consuming, and I can't do it for every practice, and it'll take longer for the vaulters to watch the video than to read a few e-mail comments, but doing this occasionally is bound to be fruitful.

I know that lots of coaches do innovative things with video and computers, so I wanted to share this "moderate-tech" idea with other coaches. I'll let you know if the vaulters think that it's helpful.

[indestructo]

I'm the same way. Breaking down a jump real-time is going to leave a lot of errors unnoticed. I think you have some great ideas going on. I don't do quite as much as you. I've only taped the meets this year, took notes on them and then showed the video to the vaulters and it has helped them to understand their jump much more then I could have without it. I've also made it a point to pass around some of my vault videos (i.e. Neovaults C'mon) to the vaulters to let them see and breakdown elite jumps and compare that to their jumps. Video is a tremendous tool!!

[ladyvolspvcoach]

Russ, I just started doing the same thing. I video a practice, capture it to my computer, create a movie with comments, and email the .avi file to the athletes and make a copy to DVD to bring to practice. The ladies bring their laptops and we spend the first part of the practice going over the .avi files. It has made a huge help! Being a volunteer coach (not a Volunteer coach) I don't often have time to review films with the athletes. This gets around that problem.

[master]

Russ, I applaud your efforts. There is no question about the quality of the feedback that comes from reviewing video compared to real time comments. There can easily be 10 times more (and it is quality) information communicated. This does not mean that real time observations and feedback are not important. Only that a single person can only observe 1 to 3 aspects of a jump in real time. But that may be the critical element at the time, so immediate feedback can sometimes be priceless. Your narrative addition to video tape that you are playing/manipulating is even more powerful. However, the cost is, as you say, a great deal of time.

I first used similar techniques (although only written review, not recorded narrative) while volunteering at a HS. I did my video digitally, in other words I processed it on the computer, loaded it to my personal web site and sent the kids links to their videos, and notes about the jumps.

In the spirit of sharing an idea, I will tell about something else I tried a few times. I probably did this more for video analysis of my jumps than the kids. I created a check list of several aspects of a jump. I could then, watch the video and try to capture my performance of each aspect by simply making a check mark which is much quicker than writing out the words. This also resulted in a table of info that allowed me to look at my jumps for the day and easily see consistency or lack thereof. A simple example would be a heading of Steps. That element had 3 choices; Out, On, Under. In this case if you wanted to be more precise you could enter a number-of-inches in place of the check mark. You can let your imagination go with this, but the main point was to increase the speed with which the info from the video got transcribed, and then the ease with which that info could be used for camparitive purposes. I forgot to mention there should be a place to enter other jump info such as pole specs, run specs etc.

I have gotten lazy recently and not used this, but the more I think about it, the more I want to resurect the idea and perhaps incorporate thoughts and ideas from posts here. Or maybe the consencus will be to "let it die".

[vaultmd]

Russ, just a rule of thumb that I use that applies to both real time and tape.

If you see that something went wrong, the mistake preceded it by about 1/2 second. So, for instance, if someone hits the box badly, the mistake was somewhere on the runway. If someone's run loses rhythm, they did something two or so steps prior. If someone has a weaker than usual swing, they hit the box badly. If someone leans back late in the run, they did something wrong with the pole carry 2 or 4 steps prior, and so forth.

-Edited to correct a mispelling.-

[Robert schmitt]

Russ, just a rule of thumb that I use that applies to both real time and tape.

If you see that something went wrong, the mistake preceded it by about 1/2 second. So, for instance, if someone hits the box badly, the mistake was somewhere on the runway. If someone's run looses rhythm, they did something two or so steps prior. If someone has a weaker than usual swing, they hit the box badly. If someone leans back late in the run, they did something wrong with the pole carry 2 or 4 steps prior, and so forth.

That is sooo true!!! I over hear so many coaches coaching the effect they are seeing and not what caused the effect...which like you say happens earlier in the chain of events.

[master]

Ditto vaultmd and Robert.

[cormanac]

Video is great way to see what you are doing and review, along with stimulating visual learners.
From our diving team - set up a camera with TIVO or other DVR recording device with a delay and a large TV screen. A 40 sec delay is long enough, as this allows the vault to occur and finish with enough time to see what they did while the feelings are fresh in their mind but not rushed. Setting this up to a computer's hard-drive will also work and allow easy recording for those magical moments that can occur during practice. If you can get the money for this, this can be very helpful. Do not let your athletes totally rely on this technique, however, since video cannot be used at meets. They still need to trust what your eyes see as well, but a great technique for both to use.