It all started during a family vacation when two Montana girls decided they could do whatever they put their mind to, which was going to the Olympics in Karate. Zac Singleton, their father, calls it a pound of Montana grit. The result of this decision by two young girls to fulfill a dream, and the support of their family in fulfilling that dream, is a Montana story of resilience and dedication that reaches throughout the world. Four of the five girls in the family are national karate champions, one of the girls is on track for the 2026 Olympics as the sole representative of the United States in Karate, and they created a world class traditional and sport Karate training facility right here in Bozeman with a three-time world champion Sensei Elisa Au teaching the next generation about Karate.
Every little kid has a dream. They talk about it and often those dreams change as they age. For these girls, that dream became a reality as they stuck with it under the most inauspicious of circumstances. The beginning of the dream was days spent training using farm equipment and internet videos to begin training for a sport they knew nothing about. Zac recalls a day months after the vacation when he asked his wife where the girls were. The girls were in the barn training as they had nearly every day with a gym put together from whatever materials they could find. He knew at that point the girls were serious about their dream.
Fast forward several years and the family is now traveling around the globe to compete in the sport they love. Despite a foundation of no traditional training and the high cost of competing on the global stage, this family has realized the dreams of their girls and are passing that on to more families at the Montana Karate Academy.
