Kurt Osiander comes from California USA and received his black belt under Ralph Gracie aged 37 years old. Best known off the mats for his unique personality and sense of humor, Osiander often divides public opinion with whatever he says.
However, regardless of what people think, he also has done a great deal on the mats. In addition to his outstanding lineage, Osiander is a very successful BJJ competitor winning 7 gold medals at the Pan Ams. Not only this but he had a less well known MMA career competing in Gladiator Challenge as well as Strikeforce. During this period Kurt went 4-1 as a professional fighter with the 5 fights being in just under a 2 year period. Half of the fights were won by TKO and the other half by rear naked choke.
Well known for his heavy top pressure game and fundamental approach to Jiu Jitsu, Osiander is often associated with the old-school style of BJJ and has the battle scars to prove this. Below is an image taken from his website www.kurtosiander.com which shows just how gnarled the veteran’s hands are at this point.
When asked about his famously notorious hands, Kurt says “Yeah my hands are fucked up”. However, he believes this does not impact his drawing ability when he describes his style as “not so technical or pretty” meaning he can still design various tattoos without worry.
For those out of the loop or wondering where Kurt went in the middle of 2019, he entered a rehabilitation program to overcome his alcohol addiction. Osiander describes the rehab program as a “forced summer camp”, although he does not mean this in a joking way. The camp was an easygoing but closed environment in which he had 8 hours of classes per day.
Like most people who enter rehab, Kurt was self medicating due to external factors in his life such as the break up with Ralph Gracie’s Gym.
Now running Empire Gym with Jake Scovel, the exit with Ralph Gracie is one of the reasons that Osiander ended up in rehab in the first place. Still clearly upset by what happened Kurt states “I don’t really like talking about the break up with my academy. I did everything I could for my students and when I finally couldn’t take it anymore I snapped and thought it would be better if I left. It was literally the worst day and the hardest decision of my life. I don’t know if it was right, but you have to live with it, so fuck it.”
It’s clear to see just how much BJJ means to Kurt and how much he loved being around his students, perhaps now he has a new gym and has completed rehab he will find peace and enjoyment with his new academy.
In the old school days of Ralph Gracie, the culture was quite different from modern BJJ. Kurt trained and worked as a bouncer with the infamous Cameron Earl. When speaking about Earl, he says “I knew Cameron really well, we were training partners for a long time. When we trained, we knew someone was gonna get fucked up”. Talking about when they were working on the doors as bouncer Kurt added “We finally got to work together one night and I saw why Cameron was so famous for being a loose cannon, he would just beat the fuck out of everybody. A good tactic, but pretty soon you have a lot of guys gunning for you”.
Kurt has often been criticized for some of the things he says and has this to say about what he thinks of this “For sure Jiu Jitsu is censored. If you’re winning shit and you’re a bit too radical. You’re supposed to be like a poster child for the public, I never gave a shit about that. I am who I am and if I was ashamed of it I wouldn’t do it.” With this being said, it is clear Kurt is still responsible for his own actions as he adds “Sometimes you fuck up and have to reevaluate your own behavior. As for myself, I can’t be a fake and I’m really horrible at acting normal. I will be myself if you like me cool, if not I don’t care. I have to be me”.
Discussing new style BJJ which is very different from the old school pressure and fundamental game of his self, Kurt is still very open minded. “You have to learn everything so you can recognize and defend correctly, in the end you may mutate it [new techniques] and make it work for you.” He also believes that everything comes in phases, with new techniques and styles developing, then fading away once people know how to counter them.
For self defense BJJ Kurt mentions “No matter what, BJJ is going to work for self defense”. With that being said, he also adds, “a lot of people have not been exposed to the self defense aspect of Ju Jitsu which is set up for more reality-based scenarios that truly happen. I rarely used sport BJJ in clubs or in street situations, it was always self defense or MMA variations”.
It’s clear we won’t be seeing Osiander attempt a berimbolo on a home invader any time soon.
Lastly for those wondering about his musical taste Kurt says “I always listen to really fucking heavy shit!”. He lists off his favorite bands as Lamb of God, Pantera as well as old school classics such as Slayer, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden and Van Halen. You can find his Omoplata and Triangle DVD here as well as his ‘Renegade Fundamentals’ set here.
