HachiDan Cecil T. Patterson

8th Degree Black Belt
June 22, 1930 — Octo­ber 27, 2002

Sen­sei Cecil T. Pat­ter­son was born in Sevierville, Ten­nessee on June 22, 1930. His inter­est in the mar­tial arts began while attend­ing a law enforce­ment train­ing school taught by an F.B.I. agent. While serv­ing in the United States Navy he was sta­tioned in Iwakuni, Japan. In August 1955 he enrolled in a karate school and stud­ied under the direct super­vi­sion of Mas­ter Kazuo Sakura, GoDan, and trained for fif­teen hours per week for a two year period.

Mr. Pat­ter­son received his San­Dan (3rd degree black belt) in 1959 and was advanced to Yon­Dan (4th degree black belt) in 1964. He was pro­moted to GoDan (fifth degree black belt) by Mas­ter H. Otsuka on Decem­ber 1, 1968, at that time the high­est rank in the Wado sys­tem. He even­tu­ally was awarded the rank of Hachi­Dan (8th degree black belt).

Mr. Pat­ter­son was the high­est ranked occi­den­tal in the Wado sys­tem and due to the years of train­ing, teach­ing and his devo­tion to the Wado sys­tem he was instructed by Mas­ter Otsuka to estab­lish the United States East­ern Wado-Kai Fed­er­a­tion. He served as the pres­i­dent and head instruc­tor of said fed­er­a­tion which was estab­lished in 1968. As the pres­i­dent of the U.S.E.W.F. Mr. Pat­ter­son was respon­si­ble to Mas­ter Otsuka for all the Wado dojos in the East­ern United States.

The first Wado karate school in the east­ern United States was opened in Nashville, Ten­nessee by Mr. Pat­ter­son in 1961. There are presently Wado karate schools in Ten­nessee, New York, Illi­nois, Indi­ana, Florida, Louisiana, Alabama and Texas.

Mr. Pat­ter­son served as the State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive and Regional Direc­tor for the United States Karate Asso­ci­a­tion and was on the research board (in ref­er­ence to the Wado sys­tem) of that organization.

Sen­sei Cecil T. Pat­ter­son passed away on Octo­ber 27, 2002. He is sur­vived by his wife and four children.

For more infor­ma­tion about the U.S.E.W.F., visit
United States East­ern Wado Ryu Karate Federation

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