Cedar Ridge Shotokan at the Ozawa Cup in Las Vegas

Good evening friends and parents! We just returned from our weekend in St. George and Las Vegas for the Ozawa Cup karate tournament. We did really well at the tournament and came back proud parents and senseis. Some of the students also went through some growing pains during their first off-campus trip.

To give you some perspective, the previous tournaments we have attended have been around 150 competitors (I'm guessing). A few years ago the Ozawa Cup reached around 700 competitors, and it was at least that big this year. Our students competed in divisions about twice the size they have experienced. I noted below the size of the divisions for each of our students who placed.

One--First in Kumite (sparring) in the men's intermediate ages 18-34, 11 competitors (he had four kumite matches total)

Lettuce--First in Kata, Second in Kumite in girls' intermediate ages 15-17, 5 competitors

Diva--Third in Kata, Third in Kumite in girls' beginner ages 15-17, 7 competitors

Sweet Pea--Second in Kumite in boys' brown belt ages 15-17, 8 competitors

Blush--Third in Kata in girls' intermediate ages 15-17, 5 competitors

AND THE ROCKY BALBOA AWARD GOES TO GRAPHIX, who placed fourth in men's beginner ages 18-34 division. This was great to see because Graphix had to fight in six matches to place fourth out of eighteen competitors. Not only was his division huge, but some of his opponents were, too. If you can picture a kid about 5'11", 135ish sparring Emery's long lost brother, that's a little of what we saw. He impressed Rob and me with his physical and mental endurance through all of his matches.

Fuzzy and RazMataz did not place in their beginner division ages 15-17, but they both did a fair kata. Alexandar the Great and Chan also did well in their very large division in both kata and kumite. AndesMints placed fifth in her black belt divisions, and MadLove scored the first point in her sparring match and then lost because she was so excited she lost her focus.

The rest of the trip allowed for some social time and driving. We made it down to St. George on Thursday night in time for dinner and settled in for some basketball on TV. Friday we went to the park and played some playground basketball, then I took the group swimming at the city's new recreation center. Saturday night was Jazz game on the TV, and then we went to bed to get as much sleep as we could before our early and long tournament day on Saturday.

After the tournament on Saturday, we hit a buffet to feed the horde (which was pretty disappointing as far as the food went) then headed back to St. George to get what sleep we could. The hardest part about Saturday was that my dog got out of my sister's yard and was missing until today (Monday afternoon). I went looking for her with my dad until almost 2:00 a.m. (She was picked up by a nice a family and returned to my mom today.)

Sunday was spent at the house except for a few of us who went for a little ER visit for Graphix' stomache (likely compliments of the buffet), then the girls and I hit my sister's neighborhood with 'missing' flyers for Lexi.

Sunday night we had a processing group and asked each of the students to rate their trip like they rate their days at Cedar Ridge. Rob and I had been dealing with some normal limit-testing from all of the students and some persistent limit-testing from a couple of the students.

Now, as their parents, you are more aware than I will ever be of your children's limit-testing skills. On trips, it is a regular pattern to spend the first day working on mindfulness about the rules for students who don't have much trip experience. After the first day, this typically irons out and everybody relaxes and understands that you can actually have more fun when you follow the rules, and as a staff I have few problems after that. This trip, however, I was a bit surprised by a couple of the students who continually, and in a bit of a sneaky way, practiced poor boundaries with music, image, and talking between genders without a third party. By the end of the fourth day of the trip I was ready to 'lay the smack down' about it. Hence, the process group at that particular time.

Now, sometimes it's hard to see this kind of a situation as a move forward for these students because it feels like they are behaviors that the student has moved past while they have been at Cedar Ridge. However, it is a very honest way of looking at a student's level of self-management without truly turning them loose. They are supervised, but the structure changes due to the nature of being in a co-ed group off campus with a flexible schedule. Some of the students thrive and prove that they choose to take care of themselves. Others demonstrate that they are not ready to take care of themselves and do not choose to do so when the task is given to them. This gives you and the therapists and the Cedar Ridge staff important information and material to work with in moving your family forward.

On the flip side, we had a couple of students who surprised us with their personal growth and positive decisions on the trip. During the processing group, Rob asked everyone to decide if they were a 'giver' or a 'taker' in the group. Most of the students were givers, and a couple of them demonstrated definitively why they are on the higher level that they are on by being assertive with their peers about the rules and by contributing to the positive function of the group.

As a whole, even though some of the more seasoned students felt that this trip was more work for them than any trip they've ever been on, I expect to see them bring this noticeable growth back to their lives at Cedar Ridge.

Congratulations to our group, and now we will prepare for the next tournament in Louisville, Colorado on May 3. I will post more details later this week (I promise!).