Heartland woman selected to compete in WKU World Championship

ANNA-JONESBORO, Ill. (KFVS) – The 2024 Olympics in Paris may be over, but a Heartland woman is preparing for a different type of competition–in Greece.

Heather Coffman is competing in the World Karate and Kickboxing Union (WKU) World Championship.

“So in my division, I was one of four selected out of the United States,” Coffman said.

She got an email just days after trying out for Team USA in Elizabethtown, Kentucky.

An email confirming that she was about to embark on an experience of a lifetime.

“I looked at my fiance and said, ‘I’m going to Greece!’,” she said.

Coffman said she started learning martial arts on and off around 18 years ago.

She runs her own academy in Anna-Jonesboro, Illinois and is preparing for the highest level of event the sport has to offer.

“So I’ll actually go up against other people,” Coffman explained. “There are going to be over 25 countries there being represented.”

If you ask her if she’s nervous about the competition–she’d say no. But there is one thing she is nervous about: flying overseas by herself.

Before all the belts, awards and competitions, life for Heather was fairly normal.

“I went to SIU and was a school teacher and I was a stay-at-home mom for a really long time and then I taught school…it was never in my wheelhouse that I would own a school or be competing like that.”

So how did everything change? The answer is simple: She was trying to be a good mom to her son.

“We had tried all types of different sports and he didn’t like any of them, but got into martial arts,” Coffman said. “He took it for a little while and said, ‘Mom I wanna quit.’ And I was like, ‘Don’t quit, I will do it with you.’”

Letting yourself try something new–something Coffman said is not easy.

“Oh it’s hard, it’s hard because it makes you step outside your comfort zone,” she said. “And a lot of people have a very hard time with that because they don’t like failure but if you don’t like failure, then how are you ever going to grow?”

Coffman allowed her love for martial arts to go beyond any belt or award–finding a best friend, fiance, coach and co-owner of her martial arts studio in Robert Cutrell.

Cutrell began training Heather around eight years ago and would later propose on their dojo floors in 2022.

And Cutrell knows a few things himself as a grandmaster and founder of ChunjiDo, a globally recognized martial arts style.

He also has several black belts in numerous other forms training and teaching them around the world.

“I’ve mentioned this before, she’s a hidden gem in this area,” he added. “She is extremely disciplined and has a tremendous work ethic and we almost have to go into a certain zone when we train together and when we step off the mat we’re back to fiances.”

Every feeling, day and moment of hard work leads to this point in her life–soon to be standing in front of a stranger, ready to be relentless.

“First thing I do is make friends–you know it eases everybody’s nerves and introduce myself to everybody because it’s friendly competition–but as soon as I step on the mat, I’m a warrior and I’m gonna do what I need to do,” Coffman said.

The world championship will run from October 20-26.

“I want to show people no matter how old you are, there’s always something new there’s always something you can accomplish,” she said.

And while Coffman did call this a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity–she said for her, it is not because she plans on going back next year, regardless of how this year turns out.

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