A sporting duo from Cardiff have launched online exercise classes for care home residents.

Rob Oyston and Alex Lock founded Mobi-Game in 2018 to offer adapted versions of sports to older people, such as rugby, football and tennis. The pair have also worked with people with disabilities offering them similarly adapted sports to play.

Since the lockdown began, Rob and Alex have shared a number of special moments and experiences with care home residents in England and Wales, including in Cardiff, Bristol, London and Reading. One of the highlights was a 109-year-old playing dodgeball with her great-grandchildren and a teary moment involving a resident with dementia playing rugby for the first time in years.

Rob Oyston said:

The carers said that he wouldn’t respond, however, after handing him the rugby ball, his eyes lit up and he developed to throwing perfect left-handed spin passes over 4 meters. His daughter, who was in attendance, had tears of joy and said she hadn’t seen him so active and happy in years. I learned he was a former rugby player and rugby coach. This was a truly emotional experience.

The pair are now offering Facebook Live sessions every day at 11am, as well as engaging families in the joy of sport exercises from the comfort of their homes, and online parties to connect children who haven’t seen their friends in ages.

Like many others, Rob and Alex, who also deliver after-school sport classes for children, were not prepared for the impact that Covid-19 would have on their business.

The Cardiff duo knew that with their influx of celebrity online classes, they needed to step out of their comfort zones and embrace their inner children’s TV presenter and story-teller!

Rob continued:

This has been a tough, but amazing fast-paced journey and seeing the feedback, videos and photos of children having a great time, as well as people tune in to take part from across the globe has been a real joy and especially considering we were two social media challenged coaches in their late 30’s before this all started!

For more information, visit https://www.facebook.com/mobigameUK/ and https://www.facebook.com/SportsXtraGB/.

Image by Sports Xtra

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