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.

IMA Dan Testing

My dad (Rob) and I traveled out to Louisville, Colorado to train and test with Hanshi Cyrus Madani and the International Martialarts organization. Well, I went to test and my dad went with me to support me on a daddy-daughter weekend. Once we got there and spent time training with Hanshi (it's his title, not his name--in karate, it's like calling someone an honored teacher or father and also conveys his rank of 8th Dan), Rob decided he likes Hanshi and the IMA organization and committed to testing also.

I'll spare you the details of traveling other than to say that I didn't fare so well on the drive there, but once we arrived in Louisville on Friday we trained with Hanshi, working on some katas, and then trained with some of his other black belts once they arrived. We also had a quick dinner in between training times with Hanshi and Ernesto and Sarah from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Ernesto and Sarah are a couple of Hanshi's students who traveled out to Colorado this weekend to support those testing for a dan degree. It is the dedication and support of such students who weren't even testing themselves that really shows what the IMA organization is about--a karate family. On Saturday, Ernesto and Sarah's support consisted of training with us during the basics endurance (which was tough), filling in as sparring partners, and then putting us through an intense endurance workout AFTER we had finished our individual test. The endurance part for me started with 250 jumping jacks and then went from there. It took me a little while, but I did it all.

I have to admit that I cried a bit when my dad went up to perform his katas. He hasn't had an exam since 1971 (well, that's his best guess, or actually Pam's best guess) and I am very proud of my old man :). This was a very special weekend for me in many, many ways. It is something I will never forget doing with my dad, and we came back very inspired and energized by our time with Hanshi. We have an amazing opportunity with our dojo at Cedar Ridge and with our new association with IMA.

I am now an IMA Shodan (1st degree black belt) and Rob earned his Sandan (3rd degree black belt).

I also spent time with my sensei from Salt Lake City, Amadou Niang. Amadou is a very special mentor to me and I really love taking the karate team out to train with him. We will be going out again soon and the kids are excited. Amadou earned his Sandan, which is 3rd degree black belt, and I was proud to watch him.

Others who were in Louisville whom I felt especially supported by were Sensei Rick McGavin and his wife Jennifer. Sensei McGavin came up with Hanshi in December to help with our workshop, and he has a way of putting me at ease. Jennifer is cool to talk to. For the evening extravaganza she performed a weapons kata with weapons that I don't know the name of, but she put lights on them and it was all VERY COOL. I hope she'll perform for us next time we have a chance to talk her into it :).

To celebrate, karate people break boards. At IMA, they break boards of pine almost an inch thick. I brought back the two halves of my board mostly because the students get all excited over that stuff and I love to see them excited.

I feel very fulfilled and sore and excited. By the time I test for my nidan, I will have calves of steel and a six-pack.

Stay posted for karate tournament details. I will have a fairly complete schedule for the rest of the year posted this week.

Osss!!!!!

Cedar Ridge Shotokan at the IMA Utah Tournament

We went to our first USANKF/WKF tournament yesterday. I'm glad we were mostly there to learn because the competition was pretty good even though the tournament was small. We represented well, and I had a great time because I knew everybody there and got a lot of hugs from people I trained with while I lived in Salt Lake City a couple of years ago.

Kung Fu karate Trip

For the last three days I have been on a karate trip in Phoenix, AZ. Fun stuff. on Wednesday last week we started our drive to Phoenix. It was a six hour drive to St. George where we stayed at Rob and Pam's house. The house was awesome, we stayed the night there and had a BBQ. played some pool, hung out, socialized with the other boys and girls on the trip. It was nice to just get to relax for the day. The next morning we packed up and left for another six or seven hour drive to Phoenix. On the way we passed through Las Vegas and went over the Hoover Dam. They are building a new bridge across the canyon so people aren't driving across the dam and it was about half way finished. That was an amazing sight to see. We also stopped outside of Phoenix and got to hike around which was pretty cool. We found a lot of quartz crystals just lying around.
On Friday we hiked up Squaw Peak. That's the biggest peak in the area I think, but that was a sweet hike and a few of us wore ourselves out trying to run up the last steepest leg of the trail. After that we went to One's house for another BBQ.
Saturday was the tournament. I did alright personally, didn't place or anything but most of the other students all took home a sweet medal for their division. We were there most of the day and we watched the black belt divisions compete, which was awesome to watch. Those guys were crazy good. After the tournament we just kicked back the rest of the day and went swimming at the hotel.
The whole trip overall was awesome. I think it was the best Cedar Ridge trip I have been on so far and I have been on quite a few. The part that I think I liked the best was just time out in the "Real World" I guess you could say and getting to know some of the girls that I see on a daily basis here but never really get to talk to to find out who they really are.
i'm really anticipating the next karate trip and planning to do better in the next competition but I'm really glad I got to go on this one.
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