Poll #6: How do you like this blog?

Yeah, this time I thought I'd be "thick-skinned" and ask readers how they like my blog. Again, there were only 12 responses, of which
  3 (25%) claimed it was the best they have seen
  9 (75%) thought it is a cool site
and
  1 (8%) said it is just ok.

So, what do I see readers getting out of this?

• Personal experiences - I recount my own skating experience, as well as what works for me and what doesn't. Of course it won't be the same for every skater, but hopefully some of this will help someone!
• Skating tips - pointers on elements, breakdown of competition requirements, etc.
• News & information - competition information, interesting news that catches my attention, even relevant videos.
• Local skating scene - Singapore doesn't have that large a skating scene, but whatever does happen, happens!

Hopefully these will also catch your attention and bring all of you readers back! :-)

Poll #5: Do you have a blog?

I read somewhere that most of the blog readers are bloggers themselves. I thought I'd find out for myself...

Of the 12 readers (!? that's it?) who responded,
  7 (58%) said yes, they have a blog, and
  5 (41%) said no, they do not have a blog.

Recently, I put in an interview at Blog Interviewer, and it is up now, you can read the interview and vote for my blog by clicking the button below.

Poll #4: Would you rather skate in Jurong or Kallang?

With the impending opening of the second rink in this country, the new Kallang rink will be a direct competition with the one-and-only existing rink in Jurong. the question of the day is, will you go over to Kallang?

It is disappointing that there were only 8 votes for this poll,
2 (25%) would rather skate at Jurong,
0 ( 0%) would rather skate at Kallang, and
8 (75%) would skate at either rink, or has no preference.

It is rather surprising that the poll showed NOBODY choosing Kallang. Maybe it is due to the uncertainty. Maybe those who prefer Kallang would rather not say it at this time - that would explain why there were so few votes!
(or perhaps very few of my readers live & skate in Singapore!)

Latest I heard, the Kallang rink is still not ready.
Optimists say it would open in mid-October.
Realists say it would open next year.
I say, I don't care.

After all, as I reasoned in my previous post The rink, and the rink-to-be", the new rink is not going to offer me much more than longer travelling times!

Still, for all the skaters in Singapore, it would nice to have an option of where to skate!

Poll #3: Is a quintuple Axel physically possible?

I put up this question because I recalled friend telling me years ago that a quintuple Axel is not possible given human's physical limitations. This time, only 12 readers voted, with
  5 (42%) for "Yes, why not?"
  5 (42%) for "No, it is beyond human limits"
and
  2 (16%) asking "What is a quintuple Axel?!?!"

Well, I thought that in the last two weeks I could learn and understand enough about physics and bio-mechanics to calculate why it is not possible. However, I didn't manage to do come up with a rigorous proof either way, but did come across interesting articles and a train of thought:

Oh yes, first, what is a quintuple Axel?!?! I had put up an earlier post, "What is an Axel?". Well, a quintuple Axel is an Axel with 5 1/2 revolutions in the air.

So, the two important things that need to be considered are how much time we can get in the air, and how fast we can rotate in that amount of air time. All jumps are completed in a fraction of a second. Elite figure skaters can get about 0.5s air time. Even Michael Jordan has less than 1s of air time - long as he may seem to hang in the air! In fact, a quick computation will show that jumping 1.2m (~4ft) high would only give 0.97s in the air.

Next, how fast can we rotate? A skating doing a quad toe or quad sal would rotate approximately 7rev/s. Let's say one day we will have skaters being able to generate enough rotational force to make 9rev/s. Even so, with 0.5s in the air, that would only give 4.5 revolutions - enough for a quad Axel, but not the quint!

However, we have not even considered that effort put into generating rotational force may also take from the energy put into generating the vertical height...

So, even though I have not done all the theoretical calculations and thorough check of physical limitations, it does seem rather unlikely that we will see a quint Axel... or at least not one that is edited and put on YouTube!

Meanwhile, to share an interesting article I came across, here is a paper on "Biomechanical conditions for stabilizing quadruple figure skating jumps as a process of optimization" by Karin Knoll & Thomas Härtel.

Poll #2: Skating Involvement

My second attempt at Blogger's new poll feature was to see what kind of skating background my readers have. Of a total of 137 readers who voted,
35 (25%) are figure skaters
15 (10%) play hockey
38 (27%) skate occassionally, for fun
and last, but not least,
80 (58%) love to watch figure skating

Indeed, figure skating is a very popular spectator sport. Earlier this year, Skate Canada reported that "Figure skating tops hockey in television ratings". In the UK, the show "Dancing on Ice" drew over 10 million viewers.

Figure skating, however, is a challenging sport, as I had described in a previous post Sports Skills Difficulty. Still, it is nice to see that a quarter of the voters are figure skaters... For those who aren't, it is not too late to start! :-)

Poll #1: Where is Singapore

I was trying out the new poll feature in Blogger, and, just for kicks, decided to put up the poll: "Where is Singapore".

The results:
A total of 336 visitors voted, and
  177 (52%) selected "Just North of the equator"
  77 (22%) selected "In Southern China"
  51 (15%) selected "To the East of Japan"
  31 (9%) selected "In the West Indies"

Singapore is a tropical island, just north of the equator. In fact, we are just about 1 degree 22 minutes North of the equator. Of course its hot, and no, there's no such thing as natural snow or ice...

Many other facts about Singapore can be found in The World Factbook.

Thus, in a tropical climate with no "winter" season to speak of, it is not surprising that winter sports is not exactly flourishing here! The best home-grown winter sports we have are ice sports - figure skating and hockey. However, but facilities are limited - maintaining a rink is an energy- and investment- demanding venture.

As with young skaters all over the world, our young skaters dream of great achievements, including going to the Olympics. However, we are still struggling with funding and recognition issues. If you are interested in supporting figure skating, helping the sport, or even in taking up the sport, feel free to drop me an email!