Our guest for this episode is Darragh O Conaill, an Irish black belt and an accomplished competitor and coach. Darragh owns and runs East Coast Jiu-Jitsu Academy in Dublin.

This conversation is somewhat localised to the Irish BJJ scene, given that we both belong to the same community, but the concepts and issue we discuss are still relevant for a wider audience, especially in Europe.

We spoke about a coach’s role in development of professional Jiu-Jitsu athletes, beyond jiu-jitsu knowledge. Darragh also goes into explaining his approach to affiliate schools and rapid changes in the black belt count of his academy in the last few years.

We also discussed and shared some ideas regarding the growth of the local BJJ community both from a competitive and commercial standpoint.