Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Last Prize Presentation for April

The presentation of our final special prize to Jay

I went down to Braddell Heights CC to present Jay from Legacy his special prize of $25 cash. Keep the videos coming in.

Prize Presentation

Jay with his prize of $25

Sunday, April 25, 2010

2010 ICU World Championships

2010 ICU World Championships

You can find Singapore being represented in Coed Partner Stunt Category and All Girl Group Stunt Category.

The top 3 results for the categories Singapore took part in:

Coed Partner Stunt Category
1st Costa Rica
2nd Chinese Taipei
3rd Slovenia

All Girl Group Stunt Category
1st USA
2nd Canada
3rd Germany

For the rest of the results you can watch it from the video.

Friday, April 23, 2010

Indonesia National Cheerleading Championship 2010



All the best to all Singapore cheerleaders, Magnum Force and Denvers, going to Indonesia to compete in the Cheerleading Championship this Sunday. Wish you all ASU.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

1st entry for May

1st video of May done by Andrew. Andrew a big and strong guy with a very humble and hardworking attitude; will indeed go a long way from here. Good video done, and even better stunts and skills displayed in the video. Shall see more of you in future.





P.S: Jiayou for your ROBT

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Prize Presentation to the Winners

The winners of Video of the Month April had been announced earlier, and we proceeded with the presentation of the prizes to our winners.

Firstly I took the time and went down to Singapore Poly to meet up with Weihan after his training to hand him his award for the Special Prize. He won himself $25 for his efforts in putting together his video...

Prize Presentation

Then Weihan realised that his hair is messy so he put on a cap and took the photo again

Weihan with his prize

Prize of $25 in Cheque

Next I move on to Ulu Pandan C.C to join Wildcards for training and presented The Video of the Month 1st Prize to our winner Ken. He got himself $50, congratulations again.

Prize Presentation

Close up shot

Ken holding the prize with his happy and satisfied look

They decided to take down a video of the presentation and Ken's thank you speech too. (Video too long so I edited it)




Once again I thank all of the participants for their support and playing their part in making SG cheer a livelier place.


P.S: Not forgetting another winner this month Jay. Will pass you yours soon...

Monday, April 19, 2010

Physics - Newton's Law of Gravity

Recently because of the injury to my knee, I cannot stunt as much, but I had not been slacking by going to the gym to work out more often. Going to the gym more makes me more conscious about the amount of weight I can lift or press, and this sets me thinking about an old yet current issue that has sort of puzzled me for some time.

How come it feels so different when people stunt a 40 kg flyer and a 45kg flyer? The difference is only a mere 5kg. And for that matter, how about the difference of stunting a 44kg flyer and a 45kg flyer, which is only 1kg difference?

To solve this puzzle, I did some homework and tried to put things into perspective.

We know that in the sport of cheerleading, most of times we are fighting against the forces of gravity. So what is gravity? It is the downward force exerted on any object which can be given by:

F=mg (F = Force of gravity, m = Mass of object & g = Gravitational constant=9.81m/s2)

So whenever we toss a flyer into the air, we are exerting a force (F) = m(flyer’s mass) X g(gravitational constant)

Ok now we all know the concept of Force, but it is still not enough to quantify the full picture for cheerleading. We need to take into consideration of another variable that is the Height, or distance travelled against gravity. So putting Height into the equation, we have Work Done(W) or Energy (E) = Force (F) X Distance moved or Height (d), simply put it as:

E =F X d (E = Energy exerted, F = Force against gravity & d = Height travelled)

Now back to my question of the difference in stunting a 44kg flyer and 45kg flyer (only 1kg difference); how does these equation put things more into perspective?

Let’s do a scenario study:

Before we start, let’s qualify things a little. In the study, it is assumed that all flyers have the same build, same size, same vertical leap, same locking, same techniques and all else same except the weight. Also for simplicity of calculations, g(gravitational constant) will be taken as 10m/s2.

So let us take the scenario of tossing a flyer to extension. Let’s take the average height of an extension to be 2metres, from the palms holding the flyer’s feet to the ground. What it means in physics terms of tossing a flyer to extension is to work against gravity and bring the flyer to travel a distance of 2m.

Therefore for a flyer of 45kg, the Energy used to toss her to extension can be given as:

Energy = F X d
= mg X d
= 45kg X 10m/s2 X 2m
= 900 Joules

So assuming this energy of 900J is your threshold or limit you can produce in a toss (means no matter how hard you try, you can only give 900J). So your full strength is 900J and if you were to put this Energy into tossing a flyer of 44kg, what outcome will you get?

Energy(E)= F x d(Height)
Height = E/F
= E/mg
= 900/(44 X 10)
= 2.05m

So from the equation, you can see that if you use the same amount of strength to toss a flyer of 44kg, you can actually toss her higher by about 5cm (take out your ruler and see how much it is if you must). Now 1kg of difference may not seemed a lot, but to see it from another angle, it is actually worth 5cm of difference, and this 5cm is usually the difference of having the float at the end of the toss that we are always talking about.

Now to amplify things a little more and take a flyer of 40kg:

Energy(E)= F x d(Height)
Height = E/F
= E/mg
= 900/(40 X 10)
= 2.25m

You can actually toss a flyer of 40kg 25cm more than a flyer of 45kg (of course considering all other variables the same as assumed above) and 25cm is almost about the length of 1 foreman of the base! If you continue to play around with the mathematics, you will realize that for every 1kg, it is approximately representative of 5cm in toss.

Now that we have seen things from another perspective and angle, we can appreciate what a mere 1kg difference or even 500grams signify. And when performing at the peak, near our threshold, every centimeters counts to whether stunt stays up or comes down.

Ok, I only did this as to satisfy my long time curiosity. And as I did this example, I know full well at the back of my head that weight is not entirely the only factor when doing a stunt such as toss to extension. I did specifically specify too that weight only comes into the picture with all else being the same.

Most times, weight is not to be an issue, techniques, skills, locking, power in jumping outweighs it. People say having that little extra weight is because of having more muscles and with these muscles the jump will be higher and locking tighter. I can fully agree with this statement, as I know the importance of having muscle strength. But the difficult part and key to it is to develop more compact, efficient and lean muscles, with a high strength to mass ratio.


P.S: Is your weight a direct proportion of your muscles and strength? Or are they a direct proportion to your fats and liability? Be truthful to yourself and do not lie to yourself about it. Respect yourself and respect the sport; it is time to get in shape if you are not already. I am not an advocate of weight loss, but I am one of staying in good physical shape and strength.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Hope my knee recovers real soon...

Too many things to work on when it does.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Well done Ken







So proud of you Ken, you did it, you can do a backtuck. Round-off backtuck coming soon. =) Jiayou.

Monday, April 5, 2010

Video of the Month April '10

It is 05 April, 44th month since the formation of X-Wonder, and also the day to announce the first ever winner for our Video of the Month Challenge. A total of 6 videos were entered for the challenge. They were all good video in their own way. We have videos ranging from inspirational, motivating, emotional, hysterical, etc. Now let us recap the entries:

1. Video by Kahau
2. Video by Ken
3. Video by Jay
4. Video by Ochi
5. Video by Weihan
6. Video by Kahau

It took us a while to come up with the winner, it was tough and we almost wanted to give a tie for the champion (again). Haha. But nah, we are not going to do that to you guys again. So without further a do, the winner for the first ever Video of the Month Challenge goes to *Drum rolls*.......

The winning video is posted and Tagged by Ken from Wildcards!!





This video shows team work, hard work during training, and also team spirit and bonding off the mats. The video also featured many great skills and stunts that will serve as a reference for many people in future. The music and clips selection made it very interesting to watch too. 1 thing that I like personally about this video is the fact that they released this video, with clips showing what they are going to do for Nationals, a couple of days before the competition. I do not believe any other teams did this, and this shows their confidence level and readiness for the competition.

Congratulations once again to Ken, you have won yourself $50.


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Alright, now some may be asking what about the other $50 which was not given out as Ken's entry was made after 14 March (after the early bird promotion)?

Ok. I thought about bringing forward the extra $50 to the next month, but upon further deliberation and taking into consideration of the good videos and support this first month, we have decided to give away 2 more special prizes of $25 each today.

The next special prize we have decided to give is to Jay from Legacy for this video.





We wanted to give this prize as the video is very encouraging and motivating. It shows the never say die attitude everyone in cheerleading should possess. We especially love the effect of the transition from video to still shots of the basket toss and also some slow motion effects in the video. Congrats to Jay for posting the video.


We decide to give the next $25 to the video posted by Weihan from Gusto for his video.





You can considered this as a special prize for "Best New Comer". At only 17, Weihan has shown to everyone that age is not an obstacle and everyone can do it too if they want it. We loved the way you arranged and presented the video as well. Congrats to Weihan once again.


Alright a final round of applause to everyone, not only the winners but everyone who posted and took part in the Video of the Month challenge. Hope everyone will continue to post their videos and remember to tag me in it. =)


P.S: Winners please contact me or I will contact you regarding the presentation of the prizes.

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Front handspring, back handspring, back tuck, now I need to get my front tuck...

Thursday, April 1, 2010

$1 Fish and Chips

Today after work I had some free time, hence I decided to go have some fish and chips at Fish & Co. It is only 1 dollar, but only 1 per table. I thought that I would be the only one who cheapo enough to go eat alone, but I was wrong, many in the restaurant or in the queue where also on their own. haha. However they may at least get a drink to go with it, but not me, I only paid exactly $1, ate my fish and chips and left.



The portion is still the same even though only $1

At least I ate fast and not hold up the queue

The reciept for exactly $1


Since many are interested, it is easier that post it up here. Just save the picture, print it out and go have a great meal =)