The story.
A Minneapolis kid who made the mat her job, joined the most decorated team in sport martial arts, and fought her way to the top of the women's ratings.
Minneapolis roots.
Ki'Tana M. Everett is from Minneapolis, Minnesota, and it is still the first city she names when she introduces herself: Minneapolis, then Atlanta. The Midwest is where the story starts.
Atlanta, full time.
Today she lives in Atlanta, Georgia, where martial arts is her full-time work. She holds the title of Master. She teaches students on the mat and trains for the circuit alongside them, and she has described doing it for a living as something she loves every second of.
That double life, instructor by day and world-rated competitor on the weekend, is what makes her seminars and private lessons different. She is teaching what she used last weekend.
She coaches the next generation of young women in combat sports, and in 2026 she ran her first Elite Summer Training: four hours, two sessions, built around getting comfortable with discomfort.
Team Paul Mitchell.
Ki'Tana competes for Team Paul Mitchell Martial Arts. Founded in 1987, it is the longest-running team in professional sport martial arts, and its roster has produced world and grand champions across forms, weapons and fighting for nearly four decades.
She is also the first female member of Point Fighting Professionals, and she has taken her fighting overseas, competing at the Bristol Open in England and the WAKO World Championships in Abu Dhabi.
Wearing that patch means competing at the biggest events on the calendar: the US Open, the Diamond Nationals, the AKA Warrior Cup, the Pan American Internationals, the Quebec Open and the Ocean State Grand Nationals.
On the feed.
Ki'Tana's Instagram, @km.e, has 43.4K followers. Her reels mix sparring, kicking drills and training with life off the mat: roller skating in Atlanta and the gear she competes in.
Her most-watched reel, a recreation filmed in Century Martial Arts gear, has passed 2.2 million views. She is a Century Martial Arts ambassador and sells her own ICON line of shirts.
Away from the ring, Ki'Tana is a roller skater. She spends nights at Atlanta-area rinks like Sparkles of Smyrna, learning JB-style routines, and her skating reel from there has passed 218,000 views.
It isn't as far from fighting as it looks. Skating is balance, edges and rhythm, and point fighting rewards the same light, quick feet.
Unfinished business, finished.
In 2023, Ki'Tana reached the women's fighting final at the Ocean State Grand Nationals and took it to the wire before losing a close decision. Black Belt Magazine ranked her No. 2 in women's fighting off that run.
She kept climbing: overall grand champion at the US Open in 2024 and 2025, at the Pan Ams three years running, and at the Diamond Nationals for a fifth time. In the 2025 NASKA World Ratings she sat at No. 1 in women's sparring. And in April 2026 she returned to Ocean State and beat Katarina Herman in the women's sparring overall grand final, taking the title that had slipped away three years earlier.
That fall she won the overall grand championship at her first Cowboy Up Martial Arts Championships. As of the September 2026 ISKA rankings, she remains in the leading group of the women's sparring race.
See the full recordPut a champion in your corner.
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