1. A method detecting a gesture, the method comprising: receiving a video sequence having a gesture and a plurality of frames; determining a motion history image based on the video sequence; determining a region of interest relative to the gesture for at least one of the frames, wherein the region of interest excludes a portion of each of a subset of the frames; modifying the motion history image based on the region of interest; and detecting the gesture within the region of interest and the motion history image as modified; and determining the region of interest as a default region of interest when a difference between a current time and a last detection time is greater than a threshold and the detection of the gesture is false.