Every coach now has the ability to access and liaise with some of the best coaches in the world.

At a recent coach education seminar, I heard Wayne Goldsmith talk about Arthur Lydiard, New Zealand’s best known and arguably most successful coach ever.

In particular, he emphasised that Arthur Lydiard was anxious to make connections not just with his athletes but also with other coaches. Letters were exchanged with a prominent swimming coach advocating the value of mileage. In this way ideas from top-level swimming and athletics were shared.

Mentoring today can look very different, with technology acting as a bridge and greatly speeding communications. If there is an existing relationship between yourself as a coach and a coach mentor, the use of email would replace the letters of the Lydiard type.

Dropbox for mentoring

Using Dropbox gives you the ability to transfer video files of yourself coaching and get feedback from a mentor.

I recently used this method with a student teacher. (Apologies for the start of the video, me instructing a student on use of the video camera!)

The video let me sit and talk with the student teacher about positioning in the gym and a give global view of what was happening in the lesson.

She was able to commentate on how she saw the lesson going and the things she'd missed in real time, she could clearly see on the video. I shared the video with the teacher via Dropbox.

You could use an app to share your video, or use YouTube, which lets you keep it private or unlisted, or if you are particularly brave, make it public and take feedback from everybody

I have included some screenshots here below, along with some comments from our conversation.

Positioning is the issue here, some great teaching happening but check out the guys at the back of the class.

Some great work with this student - well done, check out his reaction!

A superb demonstration - is it worth the rest of the group seeing the work? Again you need to be conscious of positioning, you have your back to 90% of the class.

A really engaged class - great to see them all working hard at this stage, well done.

Technology allows you to access a coach mentor for direct video feedback easily and efficiently. It can remove one of the largest barriers to meaningful coach mentoring - the need to see the coach in action. Often mentors are not able to follow through properly because of time, which prevents meaningful observation. It's humbling to watch yourself on video coaching - you often can be your own harshest critic.

Trust

Trust is at the heart of any successful coach-mentor relationship. Mentors work to try and develop and promote the coach, to use their experience to recognise problems in coaching style and content. Very often they will be able to signpost the way forward if the coach is experiencing issues with his team or athlete. An experienced coach mentor is also continuing his positive effect on his chosen sport - as well as influencing athletes, a mentor may influence coaches, and through them yet more athletes.

Many of our most successful coaches refer to a mentor in their development, somebody who brought out the best in their coaching and was able to help them in a challenging and mutually beneficial relationship. This may well be one of their own coaches from when they were competing, somebody who they aspire to coach like. The very basic technology of email communication and video feedback, can improve the coach/mentor relationship and the standard of coaching throughout New Zealand.

Instant insight from the greats

Accessing a mentor used to be a very hit and miss affair, limited by geography, personal connections and not a small amount of luck.

Twitter can open the door to top class coaches and even allow excellent professional development opportunities. You no longer have to wait for the autobiography to get insights into some of the very best professional coaches. Twitter allows insight into their day-to-day musings and you can make direct contact as well, even send them link for feedback on one of your coaching sessions.

Twitter may let you build a mentoring relationship, which could be continued and extended with video and email.

I urge every coach to develop a mentoring relationship with an experienced coach as a sounding board and source of challenge.

There are some great resources and insights available. Please take a moment to search through twitter and draw your own conclusions. I have included two examples here.

• UK sports pyschologist Steve Black
• UK coaching science manager Mark Upton

I look forward to hearing from you on any ideas which you may have around mentoring and other innovative uses of technology to make it happen.

Jim Dickin @tech4coaching