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Austintown Fitch students does well at karate tournament
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Neighbors | Submitted.Austintown Fitch High School senior Stephanie Waltman (foreground) competed in a karate tournament in Poland in October.
By TIM CLEVELAND
Having practiced karate for nearly 15 years, Austintown Fitch High School senior Stephanie Waltman earned the biggest achievement in her martial arts career by participating in the World Union of Karate-Do Federation (WUKF) fifth world championship Oct. 17-19 in Szczecin, Poland.
Waltman said she didn’t do as well as she hoped. Competing in the +55 kilogram [heavyweight] division, she placed fifth in the kata competition [just one spot from medaling] with a score of 24.4, only three-tenths of a point behind the winner. In the kumite division, she won her first-round match 3-0 before losing 3-2 to a competitor from Romania who Waltman was told by her coaches was a three-time world champion.
“I did quite well for it being my first international tournament,” she said. “[In kata,] there were several ties that had to be broken, so it was tight division. [In kumite,] I had her beat at one point, and even though I lost I see it as a win – a moral victory I guess you could say.”
Waltman said scoring for kata was on a point scale, which varies by age/rank and number of competitors. The type of kumite she participated in is called Shobu Sanbon kumite, which basically means a three-point match. She technically lost 3-2 in kumite, but the way it was scored in competition was for every half point, or waza-ari, the competitors received one point on the scoreboard, and for every full point, or ippon, they received two points. So Waltman lost 6-4, but that really means 3-2.
Waltman said she was able to compete for the U.S. team due to competing in USA Karate Federation events. She said she was introduced to USAKF President Shihan Patrick Hickey, who evaluated her and invited her to join the team.
Waltman said getting to travel and compete in Poland was a unique experience.
“It was definitely an interesting and a once-in-a-lifetime experience, that’s for sure,” she said. “My mom and I joked that the city we were in reminded us of Youngstown a lot. It’s easy to see where we get our Polish roots from in this town and how much their culture influences this area.
“I loved the trip and I’m immensely grateful for the experience, however it is very good to be home. I haven’t traveled far for other tournaments before, all of the ones I have competed in have been in Ohio – places like Medina, Twinsburg, Stow, Akron and South Range.”
Waltman said the admiration she had for her older brother was the cause of her beginning to train in the martial arts.
“That’s actually a funny story. My brother participated in the after-school enrichment program for karate which was done through Northeast Martial Arts at Watson Elementary and when he was to ‘graduate’ from the program and test for his orange belt, which was held at the dojo itself,” she said. “Being that I was so young at the time, I looked up to my brother immensely and wanted to do everything he did, so I begged my parents to let me begin lessons. They allowed me to, and ironically enough I was quite misbehaved as a student, so much that my mom almost pulled me from the lessons. However, after testing up a few ranks and switching to a class of older kids, about two years after starting lessons I became a different person according to my mother. I was respectful, quiet and completely absorbed in the art.”
During her career, Waltman has won several first-place trophies for kata and kumite in smaller tournaments, and last year at the USAKF National tournament she placed second in both kata and kumite.
She is now a Nidan, or second-degree black belt. She has been at that level for nearly two years.
Waltman said she hopes to continue competing, but she’s not sure if she’ll go to the world competition next year in Brazil. She said she definitely intends to continue practicing throughout college and for the rest of her life.
As far as her goals outside of karate, she said, “I plan on graduating from Austintown Fitch, and hopefully studying psychology with a double major or even a minor of criminal justice in hopes of getting into the FBI to become a behavioral analyst.
“I have three choices for college at this point, Westminster College, Youngstown State and the Ohio State University. I have many scholarship opportunities with the first two, so they are higher up on my list. I plan on hopefully working my way up to a PhD in psychology one day.”