Keith Owen lives in Boise Idaho and is a 3rd degree black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu under Legendary 8th degree Gracie Black Belt Professor Pedro Sauer. He recently talked to Grappling Central Podcast, one of the best jiu-jitsu podcasts out there and conversed on a variety of controversial subjects.

“(Jiu JItsu) is also a vehicle to make yourself a better person. And I’m not going to let that go. I mean it teaches you to be – when you’re given something like jiu-jitsu you can hurt somebody you might even be able to kill somebody.”

“If you don’t know how to use it properly” Owen continued, ” You’re gonna use it for the wrong and somebody ‘s gonna get hurt. So along with teaching jiu-jitsu we need to teach people how to become better people and that’s what I try to do with my students. “

Of course since Pedro Sauer association is via Rickson Gracie associated with the Gracie Academy there’s a big accent on self defense in Owen’s school. Owen even cites a drill where a hidden rubber knife is on someone during the roll without others knowing about it as a sort of way to simulate real life situations.

“Jiu-jitsu starts with respect. We need to have respect for our instructors first of all, respect for our students, respect for our family and most importantly respect for ourselves. If we’re not teaching that then what happens is that we have a bunch of thugs that are just doing jiu-jitsu. And if a bunch of thugs start doing jiu-jitsu and they don’t care about being nice to people and treating people with respect what’s gonna happen is – I really believe that’s why jiu-jitsu died out in the 1800s and judo sticked around”

Keith Owen on Fake Black Belts: “They Are Sociopaths & Compulsive Liars’