Hikaru Shida
In February 2011, Sakura formed a tag team with the debuting Ray, her first ever trainee from the Gatokunyan dojo. On March 19, Sakura and Ray defeated Muscle Venus in a non-title match to earn a match for the International Ribbon Tag Team Championship on March 26, where they became the new champions. On April 10, Sakura attempted to become a double champion, but her match for the IW19 Championship with Tsukushi ended in a nineteen-minute time limit draw. On June 1, Sakura and Ray lost the International Ribbon Tag Team Championship to the Lovely Butchers (Hamuko Hoshi and Mochi Miyagi) in their fifth defense. Sakura regained the title from the Lovely Butchers on August 13, teaming with Makoto, who had just announced that she was leaving Ice Ribbon to join the Smash promotion on a full-time basis. After the two had successfully defended the title against Hikari Minami and Riho on August 17, Sakura defeated Makoto in her Ice Ribbon farewell match on August 21, after which the International Ribbon Tag Team Championship was vacated. In October, Sakura, Hikari Minami, Hikaru Shida and Tsukasa Fujimoto traveled to Nottingham, England to take part in events promoted by and Southside Wrestling Entertainment (SWE). During the tour Sakura unsuccessfully challenged Jenny Sjödin for the . On October 27, Sakura led Team Ice Ribbon to Sendai Girls' Joshi Puroresu Dantai Taikou Flash tournament, a single-elimination tournament, where different "joshi" promotions battled each other. Ice Ribbon, represented by Sakura, Hikari Minami, Hikaru Shida, Tsukasa Fujimoto and Tsukushi, was eliminated from the tournament in the first round by their rival, Team Sendai, represented by Meiko Satomura, Dash Chisako, Kagetsu, Miyako Morino and Sendai Sachiko. On December 14, Sakura surprisingly announced that she was leaving Ice Ribbon for "personal reasons" following the January 7, 2012, event in Sendai. The storyline rivalry between Ice Ribbon and Sendai Girls' ended on December 25 at "RibbonMania 2011", where Sakura and Tsukushi defeated Meiko Satomura and Sendai Sachiko to win the vacant International Ribbon Tag Team Championship. However, Sakura's and Tsukushi's reign would last only three days, before they lost the title to Hikaru Shida and Maki Narumiya. On January 7, 2012, Sakura was defeated by Tsukushi in her Ice Ribbon farewell match.