Building good habits in budding athletes
Omnipresent in the world of sports
Starting off from a humble basketball academy known as Shooting Stars about 5 years ago, founder and head coach, Ken Han, finds himself in the center of requests from school programs – all inquiring if he can support them in other different kinds of sports.
As someone who saw an opportunity in training for the younger generations, opening up the academy to accommodate a wider range of sports is the obvious next step in growth. In 2019, the academy was rebranded to Omnisports International, now encompassing more sports such as football, gymnastics, taekwondo, volleyball and so on.
An emphasis on early-age exposure
Sports is the fundamental building blocks of everything. If you wanna do sports well, you have to start at an early age.
A mantra often repeated by Ken shows the motivation behind expanding Omnisports to be an all encompassing coaching platform. Another reason for his pursuit is how often he sees new generation children becoming more engrossed in their mobile devices simply because it is easier as compared to being active in a particular sport.
Over the years of teaching children who are around 12 years old, he noticed that it would become increasingly difficult for them to learn the basic fundamentals – making it more difficult to advance further in later stages. Those as young as 3 years old would be at an ideal age to start building good habits and get them interested in sports.
Younger children have the most capacity to absorb basic sports fundamentals
Apart from the obvious health benefits, Omnisports focuses heavily on delivering quality training as they see sports being a key benefactor to becoming a well-balanced human being ā physically, mentally, emotionally and even spiritually.
If you want to do anything well, you need to be fit. If you want to be fit, you need to do sports ā same thing goes to getting the excess energy for studying as well. We are keen on putting together a documentary to show how sports is important.
Additionally, with technology and social media becoming ever more integrated into the lives of children, sports can be an insurmountable tool for teaching discipline, resilience and other countless life lessons (read more about itĀ here). Kids can master a video game in 30 seconds but not a dribble within a day – this instills the value of practice in them. We may not be able to remove mobile devices from their lives but we can always give less screen time and more physical activities for them to join in.
A kind of symbiotic relationship
It’s a two-way street for an effective training program!
The coaches
Omnisports have a total of 24 coaches and counting, all of which come from a different background such as rugby, football, fencing, running and even Silat! From a training academy, now it has also grown to be an attractive platform for coaches from different nationalities to continue sharing their knowledge and passion.
Normally, coaches are referred by other coaches. All of them starts of as assistant trainee to the coach, then to assistant coach, and then to coach. Those who have been around for 6 years or more now also have students of their own. It’s where coaches can build a career out of it, or at the very least, a training ground before they move on to better jobs.
The parents
Awareness comes the main challenge for Omnisports. Fortunately, more parents are starting to see the value of sports or outside activities as compared to sitting around in front of a computer all day. Busy working parents finds value in Omnisports as an affordable way for their kids to have more community-type activities in a competitive setting.
The company holds a motto of “Serious Fun” which they uphold for all their trainers and coaches. It is a place where kids can do sports while simultaneously honing their skills that can be brought into their daily lives.Ā
The children
Omnisport’s commitment is always to nurture the kids first. With a method to their coaching, it’s assured that all kids will learn something at the end of the day. That’s why they would only accept well-trained coaches that are professional but also knows how to have fun with the kids.
Some notable activities the company has held are like the BSRC holiday camps, JIS holiday camps, partnering with other organizations like Relentless for dancing and drama classes. This is what makes sports more fun and engaging for the children. Along with the reasonable charges to access their pool of expertise, it has certainly become an appealing proposition.
Grooming future Olympians
Olympic rings statue at the Isle of Portland, Dorset
Ken stresses that Omnisports is not the place for only elites, but for everyone. Even if you can’t run or jump, they are determined to still coach you properly. Along the way, they hope to also find 2 or 3 talented individuals who can be future Olympians – only time will tell.
We want to make Omnisports to be a place where kids can have fun learning with the parents’ trust for the nurturing coaches. We’ll never be the place to train Olympians, but we will be the place to groom them!
š - What you're signing up for?
Kids can sign up for the STARs program which ranges from Shooting Stars for basketball, Jumping Stars, Leaping Stars for gymnastics, Striking Stars for football, Combat Stars for martial arts and Spiking Stars for volleyball.
Each program are unique and customized around different sporting principles. Subcategories such as little, youth and elite stars are there to help segment the kind of training the children will receive.
š - What's the pricing?
To put it briefly, it’sĀ $15 for walk in. While it’s $65/month for the full access and unlimited number of classes (averaging out about 2/3 times a week for classes).
For the rest of the STARs programs or holiday camps, it’ll be much more convenient to just checkout their website!
š - How to contact them?
They’re located at “The Omni”, Unit C, Spg 41-1-12, Jalan Kiarong, BE1318. This is just in front of LaMee retaurant, same building as Bang & Olufsen Brunei.
You can find them on their website, Instagram and Facebook. You can also contact them at +673 711 1866 during their working hours of 8:30am to 5:00pm (Monday through Saturday) and 12:00pm to 6:00pm (Sundays).