About Us

Why Training by Glen (Academy of Self-sufficiency Singapore) exists:
Our founder, Glen Poh, started this journey onward to establishing this academy from 2010, after discovering that there were crucial gaps in the self-development for self-reliance/sufficiency landscape in Singapore. To start off: One example is for fitness; despite the plethora of fitness classes available, there were only very few that focused on natural and functional fitness (sure there were fitness classes out there that were focusing on functional fitness, however on the grand scheme of things of the larger community; the pursuit of “fitness” is mostly aimed towards just looking good aesthetically, rather than for health and function) – as a result, many people lacked important aspects of natural functional fitness, such as properly developing/enhancing their innate abilities to climb, balance, jump, run properly, swing, etc (just to name a few), due to the lack of motivation for the pursuit of holistic natural fitness ability.. without this, this can lead to health problems and/or a decrease in their general quality of well being in life.. – hence we want to change the landscape by contributing to educate and encourage more individuals to pursue natural/functional fitness. In addition, life skills such as parkour and bushcraft (wilderness survival skills), were virtually nonexistent back then, and there have been a lack of options for the wide range of learning of practical/useful aspects of these innate skillsets/abilities.. a lot of individuals are increasingly becoming less self-reliant and self-sufficient – Hence, Glen envisioned to establish a progressive one-stop hub, where individuals can develop a wide range of self-sufficiency/reliance skills and abilities, ranging from fitness, to movement capabilities such as parkour, survival/natural swimming, to bushcraft (wilderness self-sufficiency skills), to other forms of self-reliance skills such as riding a bicycle, cooking, self-defense, etc. Glen wants to empower individuals to become more self-sufficient/reliant, and enjoy an improved quality of life.
Glen believes that everyone deserves access to these essential skills, knowledge and abilities and learn them in effective ways – hence, gaps must be bridged to help more people. Glen aims to help more people become more self-sufficient/reliant and independent, so that more people can live a better life for themselves and also be more capable to help those around them.
Besides those, Glen also wishes to see certain social issues that have been overlooked for far too long, to be addressed. He have observed issues that arise from inconvenient and inaccessible aspects of personal coaching services, ranging from restrictive locations and tools, etc, to rigid processes and systems, etc.. all which can negatively affect the accessibility of these coaching for some people who could really use them. These can also hinder the progress and cause missed out potentials for clients who do take the personal coaching services. And let’s not forget about the profiteering that are commonplace in certain areas of personal coaching, particularly in the field of personal fitness training. The mismatch between value provided and cost charged can leave clients feeling shortchanged.. also there are problems where trainers may be tempted to sell out and cater to their clients’ every whim, rather than providing the best possible guidance that are based on scientific objective truths. It’s a lose-lose situation that undermines the integrity of the professions in the industry, and ultimately harms both parties. Hence Glen envisions these things like accessibility, convenience and transparency of coaching, etc, to be improved on. Coaching should be convenient, efficient, effective, and help clients get results that are effective and sustainable (which means ditching certain things that may currently be conventionally accepted, but are actually unnecessary and detrimental to the progress of coaching-learning and sustaining the client’s results). NO to selling out, NO to cutting corners, and never compromise on quality. NO to fads, gimmicks and fallacies, and YES to relying on science, logic, objectivity with empathy & kindness – to truly help people.
If these problems go unchecked, this can have negative impacts on the economy and social fabric. Economically, all these can lead to a decrease in the quality of services provided as trainers may prioritize making a profit over providing the best possible service to their clients. This can result in a lack of trust and confidence in the industry and can harm the industry and consumer experience. Socially, it can lead to a culture of mistrust and suspicion as people may become more skeptical of personal coaching and training services. People who seek personal coaching may demand certain coaching methods regardless of their effectiveness, which can create tension and frustration between coaches and clients. This can result in a breakdown of communication and a lack of mutual respect, which could ultimately harm the relationships between trainers and clients. These are NOT good for all parties.
Apart from all that, there are other issues whereby the client isn’t adequately respected and listened to for their needs and properly given what they need from their coaches.. all these can negatively impact the clients. On the other side of the coin – there are also a lot of coaches who are mistreated as well.. trainees not properly taking in their professional advices that can really help them and their expertise not being taken seriously, etc.
All these problems largely boils down to the root causes that have been brought up above – the roles of both the coach and learner/trainee, respectively, need to be done right!
Lastly, there are also other issues like; there are a lot of personal training and private coaching that are done in very rigid ways, that hinder the trainees/learners’ ability to develop and progress most effectively. We noticed a lot of coaches who just go through rigid motions of coaching and using a “one-size-fits-all” kind of approach to all students, even for some who claim to have personalized the lessons and training for their trainees/learners – actually still use a “one-size-fits-all” approach to a significant extent without them realizing themselves.. possibly because of not deeply understanding the whys of the coaching-learning process itself, etc.
We want to be able to solve all these problems for a social cause, so as to help more people live better lives.

Our solutions to all these?
– We fill in the gap by offering a wide range of training and lessons that will help more people become more self sufficient and self capable (abilities and skillsets that have been missed out and not made so accessible), so as to improve their quality of life and capabilities, and in turn be able to help more people around them as well.
– We coach individuals by diving deeper and personalizing the training more comprehensively. This is so, these individuals can learn in the best way possible for themselves. And we hope this will set the example for others to follow too. Everyone learns in a different way.. and by highly personalizing the coaching to learners/trainees, we help them to identify their weaknesses, and utilize their strengths, etc, so that they can learn in a much faster and far more effective way than from other forms of learning that may be too rigid, doesn’t fit well with the individual and non conducive/ineffective for them.
– We take pride in being brutally honest in the kind of training you should take (not in a condescending and mean way of course, but in a “as-a-matter-of-fact” way, without sugar coating). For eg; if a client insist on demanding a kind of training that is scientifically unsound for them (even in the slightest bit), then we will reject without hesitation and will rather forgo the money. We won’t be like certain coaches who will cave in and accept, just because they’re afraid to lose business. We value helping people objectively, over profiteering. For eg; If you want 12 lessons, but you actually only need 4 lessons – we will gladly tell you, and forgo the money, to sincerely help you save money and get the most out of your training.
– As we believe that an effective coach-learner/trainee relationship is crucial for achieving the best possible results, we strive to educate and empower our clients on how to establish a successful partnership with their coach, based on mutual respect, open communication, and a commitment to scientific and evidence-based approaches. We aim to set an example for others to follow, encouraging a ripple effect that can help transform the coaching industry for the better and remind certain people (for those who already know but don’t take actions) on how all the positive actions can impact everyone for the better, and to help consumers better aware of how they can play their part so that they can get the most out of their consumer experience in such fields of service (private coaching). We focus on advocating and promoting proper behaviors that are conducive to productive learning and coaching, emphasizing the importance of logic, reason, and objective truth over fads, gimmicks, and fallacies. Both coaches and trainees/clients play an essential role in creating an optimal learning environment, and we also strive to help both parties understand (or remind them) on how to act in ways that are respectful, gracious, empathetic, rational and conducive to achieving their goals – Hence both parties can work together cohesively and effectively towards achieving their desired goals, in an environment that fosters much more effective learning, training growth, and positive change, through proper behaviors, thinking and actions.
– Overall (more in terms of overall general experience and service), in order for all consumers to have an overall best experience (and for us providers to provide the best service that is based on fair and just treatment for all), we believe in having everything to happen in an environment that’s cohesive, amicable and reasonable.. hence to foster better overall cohesion; we strongly practice mutual respect; we simply ask our clients to simply adopt the practice of mutual respect, being gracious, open, cooperative and being reasonable, during the service.. and likewise we do the same. All these builds better social cohesion, graciousness among everyone and will only stand to benefit everyone individually and these benefit the consumers the most. Without practicing these, there will be substantial decrease in the quality of learning/service/working conditions, as intercommunications wouldn’t be effective/accurate due to many reasons (one eg; is if a customer demands something that is actually far less effective and actually getting less than he/she paid for, if he/she refuse to listen to the expertise of the professional (this is one example).. > these can cause rippling effects which affect the quality of the training/lessons received and everything involved > these doesn’t do good for anyone. Another example; is if the provider is closed up to listening to service feedback and get defensive > then things cannot be improved on the provider’s side. We believe that everything and everyone should work cohesively and amicably together equally in order for the best things to happen. We see this sort of issues happening a lot out there.. hence, we sincerely want to be a positive addition/change in the community by being a good example of doing things right and doing things better as they should be. We want to help to build a more gracious society and spread more graciousness among people too.
– We bridge the gap of making private coaching more accessible to all. Because we believe that there are good people out there who could really benefit from important training, but may not be able to afford it. We don’t want these people to lose out on the benefits private coaching can bring (private coaching immensely helps one to learn far more effectively). Prices of private coaching should be adjusted to make more sense to help bridge the gap. Hence, most of our prices/rates may appear “lower-than-average-market-rates”. Not because we’re not good in what we do that’s why we’re cheap, but we’re cheaper because we value helping people more than profiteering and we’re willing to profit less if it means truly making a great difference in people’s lives. We consider ourselves to be a “socially conscious” enterprise (valuing helping people over profiteering), and we want to do what’s morally right to help people.. not what’s best for making the most money for our business.
So you may be thinking: “Hmm.. So you guys claim you offer wallet friendly services, very convenient, so much value provided, etc.. – Are there any catch?”
Well…
– We are extremely inclusive in accepting anyone and we do our very best in being as helpful as possible to everyone and help as many people as we can. Regrettably, the only times when we have to reject a client is when:
> They have a health condition that we are not qualified to take on
> They have a request that is out of our scope of coaching expertise
> They do not agree and not willing to practice basic mutual respect and graciousness, they are deliberately abusive and irrational (deliberately not being reasonable and logical). That being said, we hope we don’t get misunderstood – of course we understand that everyone have their bad days and it’s normal to get upset and lose their tone from time to time unintentionally, and we more than welcome as many constructive criticisms as possible.. this is how we grow and people become better! When we say: abusive and irrational behaviors; We’re talking about deliberate abusive, irrational behaviors that are unjust and have no bearing to anything constructive. We believe that by agreeing to follow these practices of being gracious and being rational and open – these would be the basic requirements and the norm in this line of work, in order for everything to work properly. We are in the same boat of the increasing number of workers who advocate to be treated fairly and with reasonable respect in order to work in a reasonable, fair, safe and healthy working environment. – we support this progressive movement and we are against unfair work treatments. And of course, we are also on the same boat to advocate for the better treatment of trainees/learners who want to be well understood and treated with more care too! Ultimately, these will contribute to giving the consumers the best experience possible! And humanity will grow positively to become better! We say all these transparently and straight to the point, because negative behaviors like the ones brought up here, not only affect the ones on the receiving end (which are unjust), but also for the consumers, as they will not be able to receive what they actually seek for.. (for eg; forcing a professional to give them a service that is not based on professional expertise but from their own personal knowledge biases will only undermine the effectiveness of what the consumer seek, and lower the value of expertise given. The complete unwillingness to be reasonable in important matters will only undermine and slow down all the desired efficacy and benefits, etc). All these does, is diminish the efficacy of quality of results and experiences and negatively affect the mental health of everyone involved, for no good reasons. Imagine this happening everywhere as everyone do these same things.. these doesn’t help humanity move forward. We want to be one of the ones who put the stop to all these and do things right and make things right for everyone, so that everyone will be healthier, happier and grow positively!
So if you consider the above reason to be the catch.. – then that would be the only catch! – That only catch is that you’ll just need to agree and be willing to abide by the code of conduct of behaviors mentioned, in order for the training to be conducted with the best benefits – Simply practice mutual respect and graciousness, be open and practice a logical objective truth driven mentality during the training.. so that we can work together cohesively. That’s it! 🙂