Music Video Backs National Fitness Campaign

Reposted from SUNY Cortland News:



05/13/2011 

About 50 SUNY Cortland students from two physical education courses took to YouTube recently with a music video parody to promote awareness for First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign against childhood obesity.

The clip, which features Assistant Professor Stephen Yang’s students, is a response to Beyonce’s "Move Your Body,” a workout video re-written with new words to her hit song "Get Me Bodied." The Grammy award-winning singer released the tune earlier this month to encourage dance exercise among children as part of the First Lady’s effort.

Yang saw an opportunity to teach his students, mostly aspiring physical education teachers, in a memorable way. Students performed a choreographed routine similar to Beyonce’s, with old dance moves like the Running Man and new ones like the Dougie.

“We can’t just talk about current issues,” Yang said. “We’ve got to give students opportunities to create social moments.”

Yang’s students banded together to form a group dubbed the P.E. Rockstars. All of his students are required to maintain their own blogs related to physical education. Yang has even created an all-inclusive blog of relevant course material.

J. Trenton Jones, a junior from Clifton Springs, N.Y. and a physical education major, volunteered to edit the raw video footage, which was shot from four cameras.

“Dr. Yang gives you the tools and he allows you to teach yourself,” said Jones, who knew little about video editing before Yang’s class. “He puts you in a situation and you have to work through it.”

The production of a music video made sense, given the relevance of the First Lady’s fitness campaign and the fact that May is National Physical Fitness and Sports Month.

“This was a great way to move and get people doing cardio,” Jones said. “Dancing is lifelong fitness activity and that’s pretty much where physical education is heading – lifelong fitness.”

Yang said he would like physical education students to create exercise-encouraging music videos every year. SUNY Cortland’s Department of Physical Education is one of the largest and most respected in the United States, attracting about 800 students every year.

“Obviously, we’re not professional dancers,” Yang said. “But this is a baby step towards a much larger goal: to create agents of change.”

Cortland Alum David Gise creates Fitspott

Cortland Alumni David Gise (1991 - BS Adult Fitness) created Fitspott, a new social networking platform for anyone interested in health and fitness, a robust platform to meet, communicate, exchange ideas and more. Fitspott also wants to organize the very large and convoluted health and fitness industry into easy to navigate sub-communities of members with similar interests, goal, skills and needs. Currently they are in Beta testing and they will be launching mid September. Fitspott will be collaborating with Assistant Professor (Physical Education) Stephen Yang and his students to see how Fitspott might be used by physical educators and exergamers.

From their press release:

Fitspott is a result of a passing conversation between 2 colleagues regarding the popularity of social networks. We discussed how the most popular social networks are reaching a critical mass which would result in the emergence of much more targeted social networks. This passing conversation has quickly become a well formed snowball that is gaining size and momentum with every turn.

The Fitspott team is made up of a group of highly motivated and diverse entrepeneurs, athletes and creative minds. We have set forth a goal of creating a social network which will give trainers, members, athletes, coaches, corporate fitness executives, health clubs and basically anyone with any level of interest in health and fitness, a robust platform to meet, communicate, conduct business, exchange ideas and more.

One of our primary goals, aside from creating unique and valuable platform with robust communication tools, is to organize the very large and convoluted health and fitness industry into easy to navigate sub-communities of members with similar interests, goal, skills and needs.

We have scoured the internet, educating ourselves on the pros and cons of existing social networks, and are committed to using this knowledge to create the most powerful, yet simple platform for all of our members.

Unlike many self serving communities that preach one philosophy, are too clinical, or are just one big advertisement, the direction of our growth will be determined by our members.
It is our belief that a good about us section of a website should be a book with no end.