The Moo Sul Kwan Martial Arts Studio in Natchez has enjoyed tremendous success over the years, and now they have been rewarded.

The school will hold its first-ever black belt certification this Saturday, with students from throughout the Miss-Lou and Vicksburg going for black belts and lower belts.

“This is the first time that a martial arts school in Natchez has gotten organized enough to host black belt testing,” said Moo Sul Kwan instructor Ken Rogers, a sixth-degree black belt. “It’s the first time in this city. You need to have 11 degrees of black belts to do testing, and since I had six, and we’ve got a third-degree and second-degree, we had enough to do it here.”

Rogers said the testing was granted in part due to the schedule of one student in Vicksburg.

“He was going to test a few weeks ago, but he was in Germany,” Rogers said. “He’s traveling so much these days it just didn’t work out to have him go to Illinois (Moo Sul Kwan’s tradition site for black belt testing), so we were granted permission to test him here, as well as some other students.”

Rogers said he had received special permission from Moo Sul Kwan’s Grand Master in Illinois to have the testing in Natchez, and he felt it would be a great opportunity to impress the Grand Master.

“This will be a good opportunity to show our Grand Master we can have this and we can judge our students impartially,” Rogers said. “We can show we can judge fairly and not show favoritism to our own students.

“The fact that we’re having it here shows that our Grand Master has faith in us.”