The MuSool Black Belt

By Shelby Creech, MSBB01
On Saturday, July 17th; Isabelle Kiester-Fusaro will be going through her MuSool Black Belt Selection. If selected by the current MuSool Black Belts, she will have the honor to put on a Black Belt herself. Notice I did not say she was testing for her Black Belt? She is being selected for her Black Belt.

MuSool Academy selects their Black Belts a little differently than most martial arts schools. With that being said, I am not downing any other school or system on how they test or select their Black Belts. I am just stating that we do it a little bit different.

The main difference is that the MuSool Black Belt Candidates must complete a minimum of six months of MATTs training. MATTs stands for MuSool Advance Training Techniques and is a course where there is one current MuSool Black Belt instructing one current MuSool Black Belt Candidate. The MATTs Instructor is in charge of everything that Candidate does and how he or she trains. Without the Instructors release of the Candidate in MATTs there is no Black Belt Selection Granted.

The MATTs Program has three phases to completion. Phase one is the Physical Phase, phase two is the Skills Phase and phase three is the Combat Phase. Each phase in consists of techniques that will help that candidate obtain a MuSool Black Belt.
In the MATTs program every session is a test to help the candidate get selected for their MuSool Black Belt. The selection itself is ran to fail the Candidate so they have the opportunity to prove themselves a true MuSool Black Belt and Warrior.

Once the selection is complete the current MuSool Black Belts will vote and select the candidate to be part of the MuSool Black Belt Corps or send them back into the MATTs Program. If the candidate passes they will be issued a number as well. Isabelle will be MSBB26.

If you would like to see Isabelle go through her selection, it is scheduled for 10am this Saturday.