Master Wade Kirkpatrick
6th-degree black belt, Master Instructor and founder of Fulshear Family Karate.
Sensei Kirkpatrick has trained in karate since the age of 9, and more than two decades of that time have been spent teaching.
He is a direct student of Sensei Robert Gifford, 8th-degree black belt and Director of the Zen Do Kai Karate System in the southwestern United States, and went on to become the youngest person to achieve a black belt in the history of Zen Do Kai Karate.
Teaching
Sensei Kirkpatrick worked for the KickStart Foundation for 12 years, teaching karate in the Galveston, Houston and Fort Bend Independent School Districts. He coached KickStart's Houston City-Wide Black Belt Demo Team for two seasons, choreographing demonstrations for former President George Bush, President George W. Bush, Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, Chuck Norris, former Mayor Lee Brown and many others. In 1999 the team performed on an episode of Walker, Texas Ranger.
He has been named Zen Do Kai's Instructor of the Year twice and Black Belt of the Year, and won the Bushido Award for bringing recognition to the Zen Do Kai system through tournament competition. In 1995 he was named Sugar Land's Outstanding Citizen by Mayor Lee Duggan and Police Chief Ernest Taylor.
Competition
An avid competitor since 1984 in karate tournaments, boxing and Muay Thai kickboxing, Sensei Kirkpatrick is an eight-time Texas State Champion. He won the A.O.K., T.N.T. and N.B.L. titles in the same year to unify the state title, in weapons, traditional Japanese kata, musical kata and light heavyweight point sparring.
He went on to win 37 consecutive first-place victories over a year and a half, a state record, and was named the 1997 Men's Golden Greek Award winner for the best all-around black belt competitor. He was inducted into Texas' Golden Greek Award Hall of Fame that same year and appeared on two magazine covers.
Representing Texas as the number one seed at the National Black Belt League World Championships in Washington, D.C., he placed 6th in the world, and his fight was shown on ESPN's "Prime Sports." He later earned his boxing license with the USA Gulf Coast Association, fighting under Carlos Patina of Galveston, and competed in full-contact Muay Thai under Kru Pong of Thailand.
In the dojo
Sensei enjoys using these experiences to bring out the best in each student, whatever their goals in the art, and to run a well-rounded dojo.