Sonny Hatten has been teaching martial arts for almost 40 years. He started his martial arts training in 1967 in Wood River at a time when most people had never even heard of karate. He trained in Korea during the two years he was stationed there for service, then came home and started teaching in 1978 at various locations in the Riverbend.

Hatten is a seventh-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do. There are only 10 degrees of black belts in every martial art, and only one person in the world can have a 10th-degree black belt. Hatten has black belts in many different types of martial arts.

For the true martial artist, the chance to become a black belt is the goal. A black belt provides an ancient, noble and dignified way of living.