Killing Time at the Mall

Well, this trip is turning into a bit of an adventure. The bus has had some problems with the alternator and is still at a shop near our hotel, so we are staying in Mesa for one more night.

This morning the students participated in the final training session of the camp (for more info, look up www.karateaz.com), and then they got some practice with a small tournament. We did well, but the small divisions meant that we competed against ourselves.

To kill time waiting for the bus, we ate at In N Out Burger and wandered around the Fiesta Mall for awhile. We are settling in at the hotel for more swimming and sun.

Christine

Banquet Buffet

Saturday night: We all just got back from the pool. Before that we were at the karate camp banquet. I do not think that I have ever eaten that much good food. Lamb with mint jelly, every dessert that you can ever think of, even gelato. There was steak, Mexican food, seafood, you name it! Well, I personally had a lot of fun at the banquet and throughout the day.

Lauren

Long day of playing and training

More pics from the pool

The group playing games in the pool at the hotel.
Matt playing around.
James waving 'hi' to the camera.

Wow! It is warm down here. The students are soaking up as much sun as they can between training sessions. Anyone up for some Maro Polo?

We are down in Mesa for a karate camp. The students have been very mellow and group-oriented, which makes an easy trip for me.
Christine

Second Training Day at the Camp and Shiai

Jamie

Hi everyone. One, it was Chipotle that gave me bad cramps. I literally almost died. Shelby was the one who got cramps from the chinese buffet (I think it was because she ate the left over burritos from Chipotle but you know how she is lol). Anyways, I've been having soooo much fun here. The drive down was pretty grueling, especially because half of the time had to use the bathroom 3423424 times, but we finally made it on Thurs. evening. Since then, we've been swimming, doing karate, and just relaxing. This is probably one of the most relaxed trips I've been on since Shakespeare 10'. I'm really glad I went on this one! But about the karate, I've learned A LOT about my stances and stuff so that's been really cool too. Overall, I'm having tons of fun. Right now we are trying to decide if we are going to the Shiai Tournament part of the camp (I HOPE SO) so it's a little hard to concentrate on this. We're also going swimming in a few so this'll be all for now. Hopefully, I can get a better tan because I'm the only white person who didn't tan, burn, or anything yesterday. Hopefully, I can at least aquire a burn. I'm rambling, ALRIGHT, bye!!

Zane

The weather has been incredible out here in Arizona the sun is shining and the burns are burnig. Yesterday my "buddy" James and I spent about four hours kicking it in the sun. We played about an hour of basketball and swam in the pool for the rest. After that we went out and smashed on some Chinese buffet which gave Jamie some bad cramps. From there the good times kept rolling with our first training. We spent some quality time with Yaguchi, a 9th dan master. He was like an ancient karate wizard. From there I dipped out and spent the next few hours with my uncle it was a blast. Once I returned to the Cedar Ridge Crew, it was lights out and we hit the bed hard.
Zane

Fun at the Hotel

On Thursday night we were driving up to Mesa, and we decided to take a little break and take a group picture, we were still a little aways from the hotel, so we got very tired just sitting on the bus. On Friday we had plenty of time before we had to go to our first training, and so the girls and boys went either to the gym or swimming pool. We just had a blast,lying down in the sun, and some of us got a little sunburned. Well, we will update you guys later.

Marilyn

Matt's First Day

Yesterday we spent about 6 hours driving to St. George. When we got to St.George we spent the night at Rob and Pam's house and ate some food and watched American Idol.

-Matt

Training and Jazz Game

Cedar Ridge Shotokan Trains for Workshop

The Karate Team worked on the team kata and bunkai they are practicing to perform at the parent workshops in March. After working on the structured stuff, we played a game where each player tries to pull two red strings out of all the other players' belts. Everyone had fun, and it built our team spirit.

Karate Team Tryouts 2011

We held an informal tournament for students to try out for the karate team at Cedar Rdige Academy Boarding School. The coed team is Nicolette (captain), Jamie, James, Brendan,Zane, Evan, Kelsey, with alternates Lauren, Alex D., Seth, and Shelby. Our first travel day will be February 5 to train with fifth dan Amadou Niang in Salt Lake City.

Black Belt Challenge Karate Team for 2011

Here's a piece of my article in the January Spectrum. It gives a very brief overview to karate training and competition for the Team.

Karate Team in TrainingThe Cedar Ridge Shotokan Black Belt Challenge Karate Team has started training for our 2011 tournament schedule.
A team of seven members and two alternates train on Sundays in addition to our weekly training schedule of karate on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The team training on Sundays places more emphasis on the strategies and rules of competition, to supplement the basic forms and partner practice the students get in the weekday classes.
Students on the karate team train to compete in two categories when they attend a tournament. The first category is kata, which is a choreographed set of moves designed by some previous karate master that all students in the discipline learn and perform. If you attend a tournament, you will see several of the competitors in any given division perform the same kata. In kata, the student who performs with the best form and timing, the most power, and the most technical accuracy wins. Obviously, different judges see different things from different angles, so a winner is essentially determined by a group vote.

Read the rest of the article at www.cedarridgeacademy.net/newsletter.html and link to the January 2011 issue of The Cedar Spectrum.