Kieran Davern | Team Ireland MMA Coach | Polaris BJJ | Energized Show

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What is up and welcome to the latest Energized Show! On this episode we have Kieran Davern fresh from coaching Team Ireland at the IMMAF World Youth Championships in Bulgaria. We discuss Training in SBG Tullamore, Competing as part of Team Ireland & GB BJJ Live on UFC Fight…

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[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] energize show up the irish okay what's going on guys welcome to a brand new episode of energized ross introduced a guest we have i'm imaf coach head coach of spg tullamore spg black belt and polaris representation for the uk and ireland it's mr kieron davern here on how are you doing thanks very much that's some introduction all right yeah that was good that was a good one you know what i was like i was like i was like what am i going to say about this boy right and the instructors are famous around here and i was like this guy's done a lot he's achieved a lot so far so like i probably just because i'm old and i'll definitely not no definitely not he wasn't i think jamie has like the record introduction and we had him on and like geez he scored troy the year in like 2018 yeah like loin you're just straight back from bulgaria tell us a bit about that imaf experience like what representation from ireland uh especially the under 18s welterweights i think jordan's colleagues out of spg20 more is that correct yeah that's right yeah him and max lally in the final against each other insane especially when you consider welterweight it's always one of the most stacked divisions what did you start with with your own guys first like the tournament i love the imac tournaments one of my favorite tournaments to coach up like it literally reminds me of like you know what the what you'd imagine the olympics to be like for mixed martial arts and i've been like the adult imaps and i've been to you know the ui maps and that type of stuff but um it's so professionally ran um like say the dress code for example like set for the officials is either like um like suit and tie or it's a you know team track suits for coaches and fighters and and that type of stuff but we had two fighters from spg tulamor on it uh we had bernie ward he's training with me since he's nine years of age he's 16 now he fought at 66. uh he lost his first fight to a uh the russian beat him in the second round but did really well listen really well uh learned a lot didn't get didn't have as much training in that over the last while we're covering that but um i think it's going to make him a bit better fighter and i think he's kind of pushed him in the right direction yeah that's something we want to get into as well but yeah carry on yeah the jordan scully then he fought at 77 kilos um so obviously the welterweight division he's been training with me only four years so like he's he's he's very good um but he's not he's not good by accident like he's he's like one of the hardest workers like i know like you know period whether it's a an adult or a teen or anything like that like he honestly trains like three to four times a day like he came up to me like the um the week before imaps and he said to me like i was going into each session at seven o'clock and he looked tired and come up and he said coach um i'm feeling tired i might skip this session or whatever and uh i said what did you do today he said i did mma sparring this morning at nine so i was obviously caught that session i was there he said um i did strengthen conditioning and a half twelve and then i did kickboxing sparring at six o'clock and i said go home you mad man and just take a rest and go go what netflix whatever and then he turned on he said to me um uh you know what i'll get a shower and i'll watch the session i said no just go home so i start teaching the session and whatever else it's a wrestling session or grappling session and i turn around here he is sitting on the floor showered and changed just watching the session until the gym closes so it's he's a student at the game he's training four years but he's probably put in like eight years work if that makes sense like i i could i could teach session in the morning and um i could like say get ready to teach another session in a different room could be a grappling session or an mma session or something like that and i could come out later on just say if i was if he wasn't a part of the session i could come out later on and he'd be sleeping on the couch or or be on the couch watching the ufc on telly or something like that you know and then he'd hang around for a little bit and then jump into like maybe a strength condition session and so on so uh he you know his first major competition and he got silver like the last competition he did before that was gamma in port harrington you know means if you put that into perspective like he's literally training four years he did like a few gamma fights in port harrington he went in he'd be bahrain played like a unanimous decision he like maul the first lad from bahrain uh who was like you know one of the favorites he was a blue belt he was very good he's backed by team khk and he was he fought on the brave undercard and so on so he had all the credentials to you know do well and get to the final he beat him he beat 11 on in 56 seconds by a mounted triangle then he'd be like a big czech republic fighter in the second round by mounted triangle but the fights weren't even like that close you know what i mean and then he went to he he obviously went to or he he made it to the final and met max lally max alley's training years and he's a great irish fighter and you know he just he got the win and he deserved to win you know it was his time it was his day and everything else so long story short we were so proud to see two irish fighters at like 17 and 18 years of age max turned 18 after the event so 17 and 18 years of age like close out the division two irish fighters there was like russia there was ukraine there was israel kazakhstan you know lebanon czech republic fill in the blank uh usa and a whole lot and then the two irish lads met cleared out either side of the bracket and then they met in the final it was unbelievable that is unbelievable yeah there's a lot of pressure on them obviously we were just talking about the training and the build up they weren't team iron weren't allowed training together when you look at the olympics everyone's obviously trained together myself for us we're trying to promote irish mma and then like really the governing bodies are not helping at all but like ross to get that result as well we couldn't believe it yeah also you have to put into perspective ireland only brought home well i don't say only brought home humble ireland brought home seven medals and those two lads cleared out the russians of the ukraines i think russia and ukraine had 17 gold medals each and there was only 45 gold medals up for grabs they nabbed about 34 yeah so just go show how high level they were and the lads clearly the goal is not to be here's a better one for you 100 you're right and i don't know if you know this or not but the ukraine had a hundred or 115 fighters ireland brought 28 russia had 100 fighters jeez you almost should be allowed to bring that many fighters i think it's actually no but it's actually unfair there should be a closure to each country and then like you can only blame a certain amount it would make it more fair for the state countries but you know what we went we cleared out the medal you know we we won the medal account and all that type so i don't think that the coaches and the athletes would have the same hunger that they have like to get better and then improve and build on like say fifth place like say the coaching staff and like our unbelievable it was a great team that were brought over there at the weekend and everyone got on really well different our coaches from different gyms helped out different teams and different affiliates it was a great atmosphere like i loved you know coaching alongside all the different coaches and it really felt like team ireland and i know that gets thrown around a bit but really did feel like team ireland and and i think that with the coaches that were talking to each other at the competition we can kind of we picked up on a few different things like say the russians the way they operate in the ukraine lads in the usa and that type of stuff i'm i'm like technically technically the irish lads are there it's just tightening up a few things like as in getting them to train together regularly and working like more kind of specific tournament plans if that makes sense so say for example the russians had a great kind of simple style so it was no head shots for youths so what the torrent or what the russians would do and most of the kind of eastern european companies or countries especially the russians they would get the young lads to think that they're going to strike so they come out they troll a few kicks to a few punches and then as soon as you think you're in a striking battle they double egg you they hold you down in guard or some type or a butterfly guard some type of guard it holds you there for a minute or two they pass the side control and their goal would be to get to the mount for either an iron bar or a triangle and that's all they did like no i don't want to say that's all they did but that's that was mostly the way the game the the game plan looked for the russians and it worked like they were looking to win the tournament rather than just go in and you know just fight no definitely and i do think um i would i i did watch quite a few of the fights and some real standout performs as well like i saw ben harding i think his surname's hard he was fighting and i thought he was very hard done boy in his final i actually thought he won the photo i was like oh that's ireland in the final and yeah i watched that fight i couldn't believe it yeah and then i think it was fufu like absolutely like out of some battle like he kicked him and then i i i know him and his brother i you know i should tell which ones which boy i know they like ruin old formation yeah yeah yeah and then that's really nice young guys he was kicking the legs off your man and your man you could actually see he was getting more tired i used to get the legs kicked off and i was like yeah like like it's game over for you bro like yeah he could he could do that for the next hour if you wanted him to yeah so like there were some great performances it was great to see us um you know put on such a strong show and fair play to all the coaches who you know went over there and then you know i mean gave their time and effort and then obviously fair play to conor mcgregor as well for uh yeah and everything it was unreal and um yeah i honestly think that like within the next the next year or two years or whatever the number is like you're just gonna see it uh like you know a different level in our irish mma not that the level has always been great in irish mma like these young lads are coming true with like say coaches that are like uh maybe black belts in brazilian jiu jitsu uh maybe like a ufc experience or just experience on big shows and young ads are only getting better coaching than what we got 10 plus years ago we great coach and said 10 years ago but with all the experience and all the different tournaments and fights that have gone on in the last 10 years these young lads are getting that you know they're getting they're getting well looked after with good strength and conditioning you know good you know like everything everything's getting looked after you know what i mean and i honestly think like within the next year or so you're going to see like i think next year will be even bigger for them but i think in the next few years it's going to be huge for irish anime and i think it's on the upswing it carefully is i definitely have one last question just based on the the youth level obviously there's no head strokes in it right do you think that actually favors the russians and the eastern europeans who grow up and [ __ ] and like this like almost unbred an instant i suppose irish people are actually more brought up traditionally with a boxing background more than anything so like the lack of striking definitely probably favors the russians and that almost shows how much ireland has come on from mixed martial arts point yeah so i i agree with you 100 right and there's two things that i want to say like say the the imaf tournament whether it's like for the utes juniors or adults favors like wrestling so because they're short rounds in the amateur game especially the russians and and the reason i'd say that is uh one the scoring system for uh imac especially for for for you tell you at the weekend is it favors like um submission attempt attempts or maybe like if you come close to finishing the fight over positional control now if you look at the ufc in that like sometimes it can be scored the other way so if i held you down for i don't know let's say two minutes or whatever and then you drew up a triangle and i was it was fairly fairly close and then we're up in the feet for the last 60 seconds it could like sway it towards the person that was controlling the position but imath what they do is to make it like technically better and obviously more exciting and try to stop people just holding someone down they they score um submission attempts like legitimate submission attempts or having a dangerous you know like say a triangle or an arm bar or something like that over you just holding me in side control for a minute or something like that um i lost my my my oh yeah they we were saying that like like irish guys like uh you know they kind of like to strike or whatever so but there's great grapplers but what i would say is it's a tournament not a fight if you go into imac and just say for example you four or five fights in the day if you're if you're doing mutes or if you four four or five fights in a week if you're doing adults you're wearing the sock shin pads you know the sock ones they're they're not there's not much padding to them and if you get into a kicking battle like i seen this in romania a couple years ago an absolute stand-up war the next morning you have to wake up at six o'clock weigh in at like uh i don't know 7am or whatever it might be i need to fight again that day and if if you're looking to win the tournament and not just show up for a fight you're going to have to like inflict as much damage as you can and not take as much damage so you want to look at as a tournament rather than a fight and a saturday night say clan wars or one of these shows cage legacy or something like that no no one told paula i'm that bad as did they think i was thinking they're gonna have to bring back some of these pride lads and take them into a room be like right now this is how we do it but like like here we obviously have to move on to what you're doing this weekend here on but before we wrap up the past weekend up uh what was what was the greatest thing that you witnessed there obviously there was a gold medal brought home but like what was the greatest thing like whether it be like train different lads or the camaraderie or what was the what was the one thing that you took away from that trip or maybe everyone took away together and was like geez i can't wait to do this again well there's there's a i have like a like two kind of main stories you know what i mean like say that or what i kind of took away from it one was just coaching like alongside like all the different coaches there you know andy andy ryan is great like what he does he's like kind of like the the father nearly of the of the irish team he's very good rallying the troops and getting everyone together and you know giving people like a kick up the arse when they need it and a pat on the back when they need it as well so very bad jokes keep it keep them going as well oh dad jokes and all that types of ways he's very good and he raised up the troops and everything else i think like everyone else had your individual party you know you have danny kneeling and you have like say jason mccabe north and you know jerry from uma and you know there's loads of coaches that aren't forgetting you loads of coaches anyway right um so like like coaching along like sergey and all these that so coaching alongside them and just seeing the way they approach and look after their fight which is very good and it was very team ireland based but the personal story i have and this is the story i told andy ryan in a couple of lads so like i said jordan is very good he went in and he basically out grappled like the grapplers and the wrestlers his wrestling looked like he was unreal it was like something like he'd see khabib do you know as in his he hit beautiful outside trips and inside trips and blast over legs and he was just like he just went through the gears when he went on the ground it was beautiful to see so he's training with me four years and he's one of the most one of the most coachable young lad staff i've ever caught and i have loads of good young ads that are very coachable as well and they're like him and they're coming true but a little kind of personal story we were getting ready to go into the semi-finals and like say it anytime he won a fight i would try bring him back down so i'd let him have like say four or five minutes of you know kind of you know being like a you know buzzing after fighting everything else and i'd say right heart rate down we need to recover we need to refuel this is a tournament because you can get on top and then feel that the fight is the tournament whereas you you'd have four or five fights so long story short we were sitting down in the the warm-up area and i sent one of the young lads off bernie ward to get some fuel for him so haribo sweets and like say your your fruit and your gatorade and your water and that so you just want to get like sugar and carbs and everything into it you know what i mean so i was trying to relax and he was he was wrestling on a gear bag i was wrestling on the gear bag and was fairly quiet it was just he was in a warm-up area and he i told him to eat i told him to eat a banana and i told him to drink some gatorade and then i told him to eat an apple so he was drinking the gatorade he had the banana and basically i could hear him crunching on a big apple and i turned around and i said to him do you like that apple jordan that is that like is that a nice apple or whatever he said he didn't even look at me said karen i i don't even like apples the only reason i'm eating this is because you told me to eat it do you know what i mean that sums up his mentality if i told him to jump through a wall or run through fire he would there's no sec there's no second guessing or you know question and he literally hit something that he doesn't even like you know maybe he only had because he trusts in his coaching his team and his environment and he and he believed that that was going to help him you know add to his performance and help him you know do well in the tournament so like little stories like that were you know and there's loads of little things like that that went on even like um we didn't know another little story was like i seen the um i noticed on the second day so many irish fighters the younger irish fighters were a little bit deflated not all of them some of them like say when they were getting called to fights they'd look a little bit kind of their posture would be down their head to be down and that type of stuff but i know some of the glass from the ukraine and russia and that to be very like stoic and good posture and you know holding out the flag in that so i said to my lads when we left the room that morning i said i said to them keep your chin up keep your chest you know your chest out you know stand stand tall stand stand pride or stand sound proud uh you're from ireland you don't mean you're as good as any of these nations and when we go down here i want you to have the hunter's mentality not the praise mentality we're going to hunt today and that was the mentality of the whole day for my life and i'm glad that i was looking after so it was the hunter's mentality over the praise mentality and i feel that that helped like my lives and me personally as a coach on the third day you know so little stories like that there's loads of little ones you know what i mean so but yeah very proud very proud of them and just be uh i'm very proud to be a part of them and you know help out any way i can as you feel the hairs raised on the back of your neck as a hero's given the speech the lads well it was it was really like you could tell he was in charge of team ireland he's like if this doesn't work i'll bring the apple out later come here anyone else's like i'm sure a lot of the students are gonna be tuning in now listening just being like um is there anything you want to say from overall or something that could potentially be on team ireland in the future or like what they should like like focus on and like in trying to get onto the teams in the future maybe some sort of hint honestly the the biggest thing to focus on if you're trying to get like on the irish team or trying to do anything trying to fight trying to compete grappling or whatever it is is just show up every day do the boring stuff every single day like obviously you're going to have a long-term goal but what determine if you reach that goal or not is if you show up in the gym every single day and you you out work the hardest worker in the gym or the hardest worker in the room that's what determines if you're going to make the irish team or if you're going to get on i don't know polaris or get to ufc or whatever else you just have to do the boring stuff every single day like you said it's it's boring you set your alarm for the same time every morning you have the same breakfast every day the same routine you take your supplements you go to the gym you recover you go to the gym you watch fights you watch matches and you just repeat it and then if you and that's called like the compound effect so if you do that like every day over time for five or ten years you'll get i'm not gonna put a number on it but that's the number that you know for me that that's the way it's kind of felt for me with grappling and that type of stuff if you if you do the small stuff every day like that's the compound effect and then over five ten years that's going to pay off and then you're going to get to where you want to go you and you you can't fake it you just have to do it every day either it has to be a burning desire that's what i tell my young lads like i've met a lot of people over the years just because i've been doing this a while who will tell you everything that like they'll tell you that they'll say all the right things but when it comes to like i i have young lads literally if their house is on fire they would be in the gym that day you know what i mean and then i'd have i then i'd have a young lad like say that wouldn't go to training because i don't know you go want to go walk his dog you know what i mean but the same young man that wants to walk his dog would tell me that he wants to make the irishing whereas you're a guy if the house is on fire would literally i have to kick him out of the gym and have loads of young lads like that so you you have to have a burning desire if it's not your every waking talk then you know i mean you can be a hobbyist and that but like if you want if if you if you try fake it and say for example you do mate on your or you do make it on the irish team and you haven't put in the work you're going to be standing in front of i'm just going to use russia as an example some russian or something that's all in you know what i mean so so you have to be all in with anything you do well it's both bad zombies that's just like course with the podcast like hey do you want to be the best mma podcast in the world but you have to podcast every week start off otherwise you can't reach those levels yeah um let's get let's get into uh this weekend uh august 7th polaris and you represent team uk and ireland against team usa tell us them about the format that is going to take place in and tell us what what people are looking forward to this weekend yeah so uh it's a great show polaris it's uh going to be live on ufc fight past saturday night basically it's a new format they've done like two events they've done a no-gi one i was a part of that that was uh uk and ireland versus uh the rest of europe and then they did the same themes but in a ghee format and i didn't take part in that one and so this one we're taking on team america the format is going to be kind of like a like a football match where it's going to be 40 minutes each half and then like it's a five-minute run and clock so say for example i'm i i stand up i could be competing against anyone from the usa i don't know who it's going to be on the night and i'll have a few matches on the night so i could stand up and someone else is going to stand across the map from me we'll slap hands bump fists and then we're going to try to submit each other in five minutes if the two of us if the two of us do not submit each other it's declared a draw and we go off and neither team gets a point if i if i submit a smaller lad or someone the same size my team gets one point but if a smaller ad submits a bigger lad their team will get two points now let's say i i the same match i stand up and i'm going to take on someone from america and i submit him in two minutes that remain in three minutes is going to be uh like still on the clock does that make sense okay 40 minute run o'clock by five of a five minute uh time period to try to get submission if if i don't get submission i'm out until we do a full rotation of the eight-man team and then i'm back on you might have me out now but it says there's three points for a lower weight class submitting a higher weight class okay they must have changed it because it was two on the last one so maybe they've changed around i'll edit that i'll let it down [Laughter] they might have changed it because i've heard that like the last time they did 40 minutes and i read from a from a different jiu jitsu website it's actually yesterday called attack the back and they were saying it was a 40 minute time period and i've heard them say that they might like make the um each half longer so basically yeah because i was looking at the rules on bgje.com here and as i saw it's actually quite it's more complicated than people would think so that's why we had to get john headed this weekend to explain it as well well you got the wrong night on we totally got the wrong man on i don't know if i can give out this information but you're 90 kilos i don't know what you're gonna wait for this and will you be one of the heavier guys on the team yeah i'm so the the way to kind of make sure that you don't have like just say 820 kilo lads is basically they have you you four under 75 kilo uh grapplers and then you have four 90 to 95 kilographers so i'm in the 99 or 1995 kilo bracket and i'm probably going to weigh around 92 or 93 on the night so that's that's where i'm at now and and then carry on obviously um for anyone who's never seen your graph before you're a bit of a leg lock specialist you you like to go for people's feet and is that what we expect to see come saturday night i have a foot fetish [Laughter] um look i did the the yeah i know how to do leg locks but i know how to do everything for me i said this recently on on a different chat the leg locks for me were always the easiest route to victory now like say on saturday night they're all the us a team are like all legit black belts they've they've been competing years there's world champions on the team and the who's who's of grappler who's who of grappling from america um i'm gonna i'm i have a nice little system in place where if i don't get leg locks i'm gonna be able to go on attack two and three say from from a certain position i don't give too much away or whatever so i've been i've been working you're going to see something a little bit different i'm obviously going to be holding the legs but i'm going to be i'm going to be attacking all limbs you know every arms legs neck whatever i can get you know but um yeah i feel that this is the best version of me physically mentally and technically so if the stars align on the night i believe i'm i'm going to be should be a great night and a good performance uh for me so and just to wrap things up uh i know you talked about the prey and hunter mentality is there any one particular person on the us team you'd love to hunt all of them all of them honestly and i'm not like okay right there is there's certain lads there that have like big names in jiu jitsu and uh i don't really like calling out people or anything like that but like i honestly i'd love to submit all of them and like it's it might be obvious as well it's good they're all serious this is going to be my biggest test as a grappler these are the lads that like i've never put them up in a pedal suit or anything like that but these are glads i've been in the sport and obviously the american media and that like there's a lot of eyes on there a lot of attention eyes on the american media so these lads have been pushed on social media and everything else you know over the years now so for me i have everything to gain and nothing to lose so i'm just going to go in and i'm going to give them help and i feel that when they feel when they get to feel you know what way i feel on the mat they're going to be in for a shock so if they underestimate me you know that's great but i honestly think i'm going to get the best version of them and they're going to get the best version of me so may the best man win and uh yeah i just look i i'm very grateful to be able to compete at this level you know i've obviously earned i've put in the work for years now but i'm very grateful to be able to compete now again after covert and everything else i haven't competed since october i've been doing a lot of coaching and a lot of training but um i'm just excited to be able to put like my my team spg total more on the map you know my town on the map and irish jiu jitsu did play my part in promoting irish jiu-jitsu for the next generation coming true after so it's going to be a great format tune in to see me get a load of submissions or tune in to get me or see me get submitted but either way it's going to be a good night i love basmo either way tune in yeah and as you were saying here on jiu jitsu is really really hot and up especially with the spanning of john donahue's squad uh people are really interested to see who's going to be the next jiu-jitsu superstar and who knows you could see it at polaris squads on august 7th ufc fought past don't miss it boswell anything left to say yeah i just wanted to ask one thing what two what to um jiu jitsu players are you looking forward to seeing going head head in there as well just for people like obviously you're gonna have to take a break and watch like what for the people tuning in obviously you're gonna want to watch yourself but what sort of match-up or match-ups are should people definitely not miss this saturday on for ufc floyd pass me and boogeyman me and bogeyman is going to be an exciting matchup so i believe that matchup will happen um i think that would be a very very exciting matchup i think it will be an interesting clash of style or styles uh daryl o'connell from ireland you know great great irish uh grappler one of the pioneer pioneers of irish jiu jitsu and everything else he's a top competitor in that so that is always exciting and i'm sure he'll he'll look to um you know bring bring his a game and look for submissions and that type of stuff there's no there's it's it's such a funny format because it there's so many different kind of like dynamics and different types of body types and games that can happen on the night but it's going to be a great event it's one of those events where you kind of get invested in it because um especially if you know the competitors competing and that because it's it's not just a jujitsu match it's you it's they're keeping score does that make sense so it's really like it's a team event so it's a team event and it's a great event to compete on as well i love competing on the last one because i have seven like of some of europe's like best black belts like basically coaching me and cornering me and it's and you want you want your team to do well like i want team ireland and uk to win you know one or i want to see them win because one because i'm a magpie and i love shiny stuff and i want to bring a trophy back to the gym but two like i just want to see everyone do well on my team like if i if i do anything i'm all in on and i want team ireland and uk to go in and you know we're being we're probably being rolled off in the american like the the americans eyes small but say the audience now because like i said with social media and all the attention that the american media get or you know the athletes from the american american media get like these lives are basically put up in a pedal soon or not but we know how to grapple we've been grappling like say for years so it's it's our time to go in and put iris jiu jitsu and uk jiu jitsu on the map and show these americans what we're all about you know we respect them but we don't fear them there you have a team america developed them at your peril and guys thanks a million for watching this podcast quick here on darren caron thank you so much for your time if you did get a chance to watch this podcast make sure to give it a like make sure to give it um a comment that underneath make sure to subscribe and as always stay energized energy show up the irish been sussing you guys a couple of times i've seen a couple of clips i think you're doing some interviews with dylan moore and then that i saw so keep going keep up the good workers