📍 Idaho

BJJ, MMA & Martial Arts Academies across Idaho

110

Academies

Cities

Idaho's jiu-jitsu story starts with a kung-fu instructor watching Royce Gracie submit everyone in sight at UFC 1 in 1993. Keith Owen, who ran a martial arts school in Meridian called Superkicks, made regular drives to Salt Lake City to train under Pedro Sauer — a direct Rickson and Helio Gracie black belt — and spent more than a decade accumulating what would become a 4th-degree black belt. He brought that education back to the Treasure Valley, renamed his school Team Rhino, and built what is now recognized as Idaho's longest-running jiu-jitsu academy. Before his death in February 2022, Owen had promoted at least eleven black belts and accumulated over 150 students, with half the school dedicated exclusively to BJJ. His wife Shirlane and a team of twenty instructors have kept Team Rhino operational ever since.

The Treasure Valley — Boise, Meridian, Nampa, Eagle — remains where Idaho's BJJ density is highest. SBG Idaho, which operated under the name Combat Fitness before affiliating with Matt Thornton's Straight Blast Gym International in August 2014, represents the state's strongest MMA-integrated program. Head coach Jesse Brock holds a 23-9 professional MMA record, was a two-time PAC-10 Conference wrestling champion and three-time NCAA National Championships qualifier at Boise State, and earned his black belt under Thornton. Scott Thometz, the gym's first SBG black belt (awarded 2016), is an Army Ranger veteran with an 11-6 pro record. Veta Arteaga, who earned her black belt in 2022, holds a 7-5 professional MMA record and fought under Bellator contract — the most credentialed active female competitor produced by any Idaho gym. The Base Jiu Jitsu, which opened in 2005 and has operated continuously in the Treasure Valley since, anchors the Pedro Sauer tradition on the Boise side.

East of the Treasure Valley, Pocatello carries its own weight. Elite Jiu-Jitsu Academy head instructor Mark Massey received his black belt directly from Rigan Machado — in Pocatello, on May 25, 2013 — and now serves as Machado's Association Director, standardizing curriculum for affiliated schools nationwide. Massey's law enforcement background (former police captain and current Chief of Corrections for the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes) shapes a program built around practical application. Alliance Jiu Jitsu has an anchor in Twin Falls, and Idaho Falls supports two academies of its own, SOMA and Vibe, both running structured adult programs. North Idaho's scene is smaller but present, with Sandpoint's North Idaho Jiu Jitsu serving the Coeur d'Alene corridor.

The training culture in Idaho runs noticeably practical. The state's two dominant lineages — Pedro Sauer's technical self-defense emphasis through Team Rhino and the SBG "aliveness" methodology that pulls from wrestling and MMA — lean toward functional grappling over pure sport BJJ. The SBG gym in particular produces active professional fighters: the Arteaga siblings, Brock, and Thometz all compete or have competed at the highest regional and national levels, which means even recreational students at that gym train alongside people with fight camp schedules. Outside Boise, gyms in smaller cities operate more as community-driven training rooms than competition factories, with competition participation running through IBJJF, NAGA, and regional events like the Northwest Submission Challenge.

MatMade lists 110 BJJ gyms across Idaho, which reflects how thoroughly the sport has distributed itself outside the Treasure Valley. A newcomer should know that Boise is where the professional-caliber instruction concentrates, but Pocatello has a legitimate Machado lineage program worth seeking out if you're in the southeast part of the state. The gyms that have lasted — Team Rhino since 1993, SBG Idaho since its Combat Fitness years — did so by training people who stayed, competed, and eventually came back to coach.