Puncher Exclusive Interview with officer Greg McNamee

I’ve had the absolute pleasure of getting to know Detective Greg McNamee. We first met on Instagram and then he invited me to attend a training session with the LAPD’s Mixed Martial Arts team. After overcoming my terror of grappling with some of the toughest men and women on the planet we bonded through our mutual love of martial arts. I then had the honor of watching him fight at a Dog Brothers Kali stick fighting gathering.

Having spent decades training in multiple disciplines, Greg is a walking martial arts encyclopedia. If you ever get the chance to train with him consider yourself lucky. I do. Greg’s story is so fascinating and inspirational that I had to share it with the Puncher community and thankfully he agreed to be interviewed.

Aaron: Greg, tell us about your background. How did it all start?

Greg: My name is Greg McNamee. I am a family man, a lifelong martial artist and a narcotics detective in Southern California. I’ve been a police officer for 22 years. I started martial arts at the age of five, training in Tae Kwon Do, where one of my black belt instructors was a local police officer. At that time, I knew two things about my life. I would be a martial artist as long as I lived, and I was going to become a policeman. I became a US Marine and my MOS was 5811, Field Military Police. The Marine Corps helped me springboard into the field of law enforcement. All that being said, my bride and my children and martial arts are my life.

Aaron: What type or types of Martial arts do you train and in and how long have you been training for?

Greg: Currently, I train and fight in the Filipino martial art Kali with the Dog Brothers Tribe, specifically with the NoHo Dogs Clan. I am a full Dog Brother known by the moniker Donnybrook Dog. I train Muay Thai out of Primal MMA and Muay Thai and 818 Boxing Club, under Niko Ruiz and Patrick Guzman. I am a BJJ purple belt and train under Master JJ. Machado. I am a teacher of Raw Combat International, under the guidance of Luke Holloway. I also teach Edged Weapons Threat Management to the in-service officers of my department and am a member of the department MMA Team and the department Submission Grappling Team.

I was a very avid BJJ and submission grappling competitor until a few years back. I fought in tournaments up and down SoCal and even in Vegas and loved the tests I put myself through. I developed a few very close friends from those competitions. Win or lose, it was a very gentlemanly form of combat. Then I found the Dog Brothers. In Gatherings, we fight under MMA type rulesets, but with sticks, knives and other weapons. This is as real as it gets, and I LOVE it!

Aaron: In talking to you, it’s clear that you adore your two kids. How does training make you a better father?

Greg: I hope my training makes me a better father! I try to set the example of hard and honest work and dedication to a discipline and being disciplined. I involve my kids in my training and take them to my training sessions. My hope is that they learn that the arts are my way of life, and hopefully, they will learn to love and enjoy them as I have throughout my entire life. The confidence, purpose and discipline helped keep me out of a lot of (not all) trouble when I was young and into young adulthood. And I hope the arts will do the same for them.

Aaron: Tell me how martial arts help you in your career in law enforcement.

Greg: In my line of work, we only use the amount of force needed to overcome resistance and to effect an arrest. Those 2 keys can interchange and vary in the course of a force incident. I have to know in my head solidly, what I can and cannot do given the suspect’s actions.

As for training, I do so to avoid, cut off, deflect or nullify a potential Use of Force incident. My mindset, confidence in my abilities and ability to read body language helps me nullify an incident. But at the same time, if it goes to a UOF, I use force violently and swiftly. Period. End of sentence. I want it done and over quick and I’m going home safe.

My training drills this in so that it is second nature. I’m not caught up with thinking or analyzing during the fight or dragging it out to where I become ineffective. I owe that to myself, my partners, the good citizens of this city, and even to the suspect who decided that it was a good idea to fight with police.

22 years of being police officer and 42 years of Martial Arts training I have learned that 90% of it is mental. The physical work is the easy part. Finding the time to DO the work can be challenging. And if there does come a day where I truly cannot train anymore, maybe I do need to find a new line of work. Mind you, I sit here typing this as I’m laid up and unable to train for days because of just having 3 needles shoved into my neck and spinal cord to relieve some neck pain, for hopefully another year or so.

Aaron: You once told me that doctors have written you off and through your training and conditioning you are living a life many thought wouldn’t be possible. Can you talk about this?

Greg: The reality is that I live in chronic pain in several areas of my neck, lower back and extremities, and have so for years. These injuries have been sustained during my work as a police officer. I undergo medical procedures several times a year which keeps me from needing vertebrae fusions or disc replacements in 3 levels of my neck and 3 levels of my lower back. I have been told multiple times by different physicians that due to these injuries, I would never train, compete or fight again. I was told this for the first time back in 2003 when bone was cut off of 2 vertebrae in my neck.

When I thought my martial arts pursuits were over, I actually stepped away from everything for about a year and a half or so. I actually listened to the doctor because I was told I would be crippled in my neck and right arm. I look back on that as lost time and I regret doing so. I did not read training materials, I did not watch MMA fights and I cut ties with my training partners.

After going through an extensive rehab process, I recovered better than anyone ever expected. So, I slowly stepped back into training stand up and BJJ. The more I trained, the better I felt and the stronger I became. So now, whenever someone tells me that I should not be training or fighting or competing, I tell them to get in line with the rest of the naysayers. Training, strengthening my mind, heart and body helps me overcome the physical pain I wake up with and go to sleep with each and every day.

During my training sessions, I don’t feel like a washed up and broken man. I just wish I never walked away back after the first surgery. I could have continued to learn by using my time in other ways than physical training. Don’t ever believe that you can’t do something when you put your mind to it!

Aaron: What is your home gym and the community like there

Greg: I have a couple Home Gyms so to speak. The first one is a strip of grass in a North Hollywood hobo park that butts right up against the 170 Freeway. It’s dubbed The NoHo Dogs Proving Ground, Ground Zero. It’s where I learned so much more about myself and became a Stick Fighter. Many of my mentors are there and my NoHo Dog Brother BROTHERS. We play hard and train harder, as we step over dog shit and trash and grow as FMA practitioners. We train there rain or shine, hot or cold. It’s where warriors are made.

My 2nd home gym is Primal MMA and Muay Thai School, which has just joined forces with 818 Boxing Club, located up in the city of San Fernando. Niko, Pat and Edgar are phenomenal people and coaches and Niko and Pat are fighters as well. It has everything I need in a facility and the members are like a second family. Egos are not tolerated from anyone and it’s all hard work, blood, sweat and tears. Niko and Pat are actually supporting my fool brained idea to cut my teeth on a couple amateur Muay Thai fights before I’m too old and decrepit. Their confidence in me helps me to believe that I might actually not get my teeth completely kicked in!

The last place I call home, which I have just recently returned to, is the same academy that I began my formal BJJ training so many years ago. At that is with JJ Machado. If you know BJJ, this academy needs no further explanation. So many champion BJJ players and top-notch instructors have come from Jean Jacques. I’m blessed to be back learning on the mats and with such great people.

Aaron: What’s one thing people would be surprised to know about you?

Greg: I am and always have been a big comic book geek. And I think loving and reading comic books has helped shape me as a family man, a martial artist and as a policeman. I still read and collect them to this day. Maybe they will help pay for our kids’ college tuition! (Probably not). But I grew up reading Iron Fist, Power Man, the Defenders, Master of Kung Fu and Spider Man specifically. Theses characters epitomized who I wanted to be and what I wanted to do. They trained their mind, heart and body, and went out there to make the world and their neighborhoods a better place for society. Corny but true.

Aaron: Greg, thank you very much for sharing your story with us. I look forward to watching you fight at the next Dog Brothers gathering.

Everyone, make sure to follow Greg’s exploits on Instagram at @donnybrook_mac

To learn more about the history and practice of martial arts check out the other articles in the Puncher “What is” series on Judo, Boxing, Karate, Taekwondo, Muay Thai, Sambo, Krav Maga, MMA and more.

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