Kung fu dreams

Miranda displays his tattoos and the logo of his jiu-jitsu team.

But their imposing physical presence has little relation to their friendly demeanor as they chat about trying to encourage more female fighters and the challenges of adjusting to a different language and culture.

They established Big King BJJ gym in Beijing 18 months ago, renting out rooms in Wangjing's KOO Gym to start taking students.

A good fight

While China has a long history of martial arts, commonly known as kung fu, Queiroz says they want to "introduce a wider spectrum of martial arts to China, in particular jiu-jitsu".

Thomassen, Miranda and Queiroz teach a variety of disciplines with a focus on Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Thai boxing and reality based self-defense, a pragmatic form of martial arts that focuses on modern conflicts and crime situations.

Thomassen says there are similarities across the various forms.

"There are only so many ways the human body moves," he explains. "So if you go into the Chinese system you are going to find the same way to break an arm," he explains.

Thomassen first came to China eight years ago to study martial arts.