Students spar with each other at the gym. Photos by Yin Di / for China Daily

They are three foreigners who share a passion for an ancient Chinese art. They traveled halfway across the globe to realize their vision of opening up a gym to share their knowledge of martial arts learned in Brazil and Europe. Belle Taylor reports.

Up a narrow stairwell in a gym above a coffee shop in Beijing's Wangjing area, three friends from opposite ends of the globe, Norway and Brazil, are working hard at creating their own version of the Chinese dream.

A good fight

They are not manufacturing products to export, or selling foreign made goods to the booming Chinese market - they are building a martial arts gym, bringing an international flavor to an ancient Chinese discipline.

"We have been friends for a long time and we started to talk about plans to open a gym in Scandinavia," says Brazilian Luciano Queiroz. "But we talked things over and we saw that it was going to be much better to come to China because China is growing so fast."

The trio, Norwegian Fred Thomassen and Agusto Miranda and Queiroz, both from Brazil, met as they pursued their sport by training and competing internationally over a number of years.

They are all impressively tall and well built, athletes with years of training behind them.