Consistently Above Average

Recorded in the middle of the night in a room terrified of waking people up above and beside me. This is episode 54 of Consistently Above Average. Following the public shame, humiliation, embarassment, betrayal and possible hyperbole. I have fled to France after losing on Polaris nearly 2 weeks ago. Perhaps, not the audio conditions you are usually all treated to, but have been enjoying the downti...

Hey, thanks for waiting. Jetlag drove me to planning this episode, maybe I should consider not sleeping more often during regular weeks and we could get some more podcasts out. I went to California and wanted to give you the low down or experience of my first IBJJF Gi World Championships. It was really good, we also got to train with Dan Lukehart at Brea JiuJitsu who you may remember from older ep...

I don't know if it's because i overcame potentially the most lethal dose of flu ever recorded in the history of mankind this week but I might have turned into a bit of a hater this episode. Alternative episode title could have been an A-D-SEE-SEE esque title because well and truely I have to be honest with you. Even though this tournament will crown one of the best grapplers in Europe, it attracts...

Honestly guys, the title speaks for itself. One topic this week, we deep dive it, A podcaster shouldn't tell you they are lost for words but my word...

Honestly it's been that long since I released an episode I think it would be disengenious to try and come up with an episode title that would make you think...oh what. a lovely nuanced thought out discussion and podcast episode. It's back, 2026 is the year it works or goes bust. I'm hoping for the former instead of the latter but we haven't spoken since Las Vegas, then we had Christmas, Lisbon, Lo...

Unfortunately, the show was delayed due to some legal complications that we address very early in the show. Lessons have been learned, and I promise all of the listeners that it won't happen again. It's the week before heading off to Las Vegas, but just after that is Christmas, where training is going to slow down a little bit, and you (yes, you) need to take a long hard look at yourself. The shop...

HYDROX Dublin 2025 is here, one of the biggest events on the sporting calendar. Over 15,000 hybrid rockstar athletes are taking to the turf in the hollowed halls of the RDS Arena in Ballsbridge DUBLIN 4. Finishers patches, event t-shirts, medals and podium photos all up for grabs this weekend, either in the singles, doubles, mixed doubles and elite divisions. Huge early controversy is brewing onli...

This is such a terrible time to be writing a podcast bio when your alarm is going off in 5 hours to drive to Dublin for the IBJJF Dublin Open but here I am. I'm not even going to ask ChatGPT to correct the spelling and grammar on this one either. It's a debrief episode on my experience competing in the NoGi Europeans last week, as well as the announcement you've all been waiting for...when are And...

A lot of my training partners competed very well during the week and Team Torres has a new European Champion. We had put a lot of good work leading up to this tournament. I just felt like it was important, for me in some capacity to record and release this episode before I competed today. I turn 33 today, quite a lot of the positive things that have formed in my adult life have formed from being i...

So, Episode 44 of the Consistently Above Average podcast is here. There's a big No-Gi Europeans next week that everybody is very excited for, I think, just under 3,000 people competing in Ostia in Rome next week and weekend. I believe across all divisions this is going to be a breakout tournament for people, and there are a few sleepers that are going to win divisions. We will talk about that more...

Last week I closed off the podcast letting you know that I reached out to the Ireland BJJ organisation with some questions, both about the Emerald Cup and their evening event, the Irish BJJ Invitational. We discuss the response, we go through the email I received, and we talk about the evening event — both in the promotion, the day itself, and the reaction people had. I also think transparency is...

I promise, I genuinely thought it was called the Emerald Cup for the first six minutes. Sorry about that. I'm holding myself to a public declaration of weekly episodes again. If I miss one, everyone who likes and reshares this podcast will win $100.* This week’s episode is a single-topic deep dive into the Shamrock Cup, with a little side diversion about how obvious ChatGPT-generated social media...

It's been 43 days since I wrote a podcast bio description after recording an episode and I do admit I missed it a little bit more than I thought I would. Quick catch up and chat about what's been going on the last little while and why there's not been an episode, hard to act like everythings going great for your training when you're not able to do it the way you would like to. That's probably a si...

Chris Leddy is a Brazilian JiuJitsu Black Belt, He runs https://martialartsbray.ie/ alongside his brother Adam, He's also an instructor with David Gray Interactive https://www.davidgreyrehab.com/courses/Interactive Chris has been training JiuJitsu since the late 2000s after befriending Darragh O'Conaill in a local weight lifting gym. Since then he has traveled, trained and competed all around the...

It's a shorter episode this week but the whole world is now aware of some random CEO from an American company and the alleged HR worker who may or may not have been having an affair. At a wider look, it's insane to think something that's happening every day, with little to no consequences at all can just be amplified to life altering effects with just one thing being recorded and going viral. On t...

Episode 38 is here! boards.ie was once the old stomping ground of the Irish Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu community—people posting under usernames, some knowing who was who, others just faceless trolls. The internet hasn't changed much in that regard, and neither has the tendency for people to complain about competitions. In this episode, we take a stroll down memory lane to revisit discussions around tourn...

Audio-only return of Consistently Above Average – Episode 37. In this episode, I talk about the recent absence, where real life basically jumped right in front of the car that is this podcast and forced a little break. This is one of two episodes dropping this week, so keep an ear out for Friday's release as well. Today, I ramble on about the concept of sonder , why I’ve always wanted to be a cond...

This is part two of a two-part conversation. The full, uncut version (around 3 hours) is up on YouTube. Dan Lukehart is a third-degree BJJ black belt under Beneil Dariush, owner of Brea Jiu-Jitsu in California, and co-owner of IBJJFRankings.com . He’s known for his deep understanding of IBJJF rules, his old-school training logs, and his detailed athlete breakdowns. Dan also coaches Nolan Stuart, w...

It’s been a while since the last episode, but trust me—this one’s worth the wait. This is part one of a two-part conversation. The full, uncut version (around 3 hours) is up on YouTube. Dan Lukehart is a third-degree BJJ black belt under Beneil Dariush, owner of Brea Jiu-Jitsu in California, and co-owner of IBJJFRankings.com . He’s known for his deep understanding of IBJJF rules, his old-school tr...

The Irish Open has come and gone, the biggest day in the calendar year in the Irish Brazilian JiuJitsu community. I assume this will be the first of two episodes on this topic because I would welcome people getting in touch to let me know what they thought of the whole thing. Since recording this episode I was also contacted by a couple of people regarding the registrations etc, I did talk about i...

We've kicked off episodes with some wild topics before, but I didn’t think the 100-year-old plans for a Metro in Dublin — complete with a hub at Dublin Airport — would come up this soon. After a three-week hiatus, I’m back following a run at the IBJJF Masters Europeans, the Rome Spring Open, and a short holiday in France. This is one of two episodes dropping this week. I wanted to get something ou...

Andrew McGahon recapping a Mixed Martial Arts event I attended last night was not on the trajectory of plans for this particular podcast but here we are. Perched in the back row of the cheap(est) seats in the venue armed with a red and black pen and a notebook I took my mate from Dundalk for a trip to see Cage Warriors. We missed the last 3 fights of the night unfortunately so didn't get to includ...

It’s WrestleMania Weekend, and the WWE is now part of one of the most valuable sports entities on the planet—TKO Group. This powerhouse also includes the UFC under its umbrella, along with a soon-to-be-launched boxing league. Dana White has announced a major investment into the sport of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and it’s not a stretch to suggest that Fight Pass Invitational and the UFC brand could beco...

It's a fairly simple question for episode 30 this week. It could be about any one thing, or many things. Just realise that depending on who asks you this particular question, including yourself there's a chance that the answering is going to be different. I think it's important that moving forward, if someone asks me that question the answer should be the same across the board no matter who is ask...

Earlier this week, I posted a photo that got a lot of interaction and feedback. It was taken moments after the NoGi European final in 2022 in Rome. I've been sitting on this photo for a couple of years, and when I was deciding what to feature in this week’s episode, I figured it was time to share it. Thanks to keeping notes of my training throughout that year, I was able to look back at my tournam...