Alexander the Great plunders the Persians

What to say? The trip to Salt Lake was totally awesome. We got the crap kicked out of us by Amadou with a tough sparring combination practice. Then we got to SPAR!!! Which is in fact my very favorite part of karate. Sensei did chew me out for hitting Sweet Pea way too hard. I felt pretty bad about that cuz Sweet Pea's my boy. I had been kinda showing off for the cute jr. black belt. Then we went to an awesome Jazz game, the first NBA game I have ever been to. It was awesome hanging out with all of my friends. I had some pretty good talks with Christine and Sean, too. Over all the trip was awsome and I can't wait to do it again.

- Alexander the Great

Cedar Ridge Shotokan Karate Team

I tried to get a really good picture, but the glare from the sun made it a little grainy. I'll try again soon, but here this is for now.

You can download the GIF files of these and a few more team pictures at www.peopleplacesphotography.com. DO NOT PAY FOR THE PHOTOS! You should be able to right click and download the file. I already gave prints of these pictures to the students who are in them. The password for any Cedar Ridge Academy picture is cedarridge, one word, two r's. Thanks!
Sensei Christine

Lunchbox goes to Salt Lake City

On Saturday the Karate team went down to Salt Lake City to train with Sensei Amadou. We trained for two painful, exhausting,and eventful hours. After the training we got ready to go to the Chinese Buffet, then off to the Jazz game. Once we got to the Jazz game it was hard not to people watch with normal people we don't regularly see. I felt like a normal teenager going out with friends to see a game and just hanging out. At half time at the Jazz game it was Bear's birthday which is their mascot. They invited other mascots from the other teams to celebrate his birthday by bringing gifts. My favorite was a dragon who once he lifted up his shirt green streamer flew out of his nose. For the rest of half time they did dunking competions by doing tricks off trampolines. At the end the Jazz won against the Bucks. We got in the car and started the long three hour journey back home.
--Lunchbox

Cedar Ridge Shotokan Karate Team trains with Sensei Amadou Niang

On Saturday the Karate Team went down to Salt Lake City to train with Sensei Amadou. He had come down to Cedar Ridge a few months earlier to do a workshop with the whole campus so most of us were familiar with him. We left at 8a.m. and all piled into the Yukon to drive down. After the three hour drive, we stopped at Costco to get pizza for lunch. After we had all eaten, we got back into the car to drive down to the dojo. For the first two hours, we watched Christine train and could tell that this was going to be a hard workout. We started our workout with the warm ups, and then Amadou said he'd be teaching us 20 of their sparring techniques that they do at their dojo. I was really excited because I haven't been able to have much sparring lately. It started off pretty easy with different combinations of punches, kicks, and blocks. As the hour went on, I soon realized that this wouldn't be as easy as I thought it was going to be. Everyone started to get tired and Amadou asked "Are you getting tired?" We all responded no because we knew that if we said yes then we'd have to do jumping jacks or planks. After an exhausting hour and a half and learning all 20 combinations, we finally got a three minute break. We took that break to get a quick drink of water and regain our breath. After our break, we all sat in a circle and did another sparring exercise where two people were in the middle and whoever won the match stayed in the middle while the other one sat down and a new competitor came up. It was cool to watch everyone and learn new styles of sparring. After we had finished and bowed out, we went over to the Chinese Gourmet and ate all the food we could. Then it was off to the Jazz game. We were up in the nosebleeds, but had a pretty good view of the court. The game was really fun to watch. The Jazz beat the Bucks no problem. Overall it was a really fun trip to go on .
--Bug

Video from Training Trip to Salt Lake City

Training in Salt Lake City

This Saturday we are training with Sensei Amadou Niang in Salt Lake City. Sensei Amadou has been training under Hanshi Madani (Madani, who conducted a recent workshop for us, was awarded his eighth dan in Morocco by the World Karate Federation). We are going to train and socialize, including a Jazz game after we train and eat! Check soon for pictures.