When Ronald Diaz saw how boxers train in Thailand, the culture shock hit him after the first morning session.
All the adult boxers cleared the gym floor, and in came the kids. At just eight or nine years old, they could already spar with knees and elbows.
“I looked at that and said, ‘Whoa, okay. This is where we need to be,'” said Diaz.
Together with his brother Ryan, a former pro fighter who now coaches in the UFC, Ronald Diaz is the co-founder of Diaz Combat Sports — a two-storey, 20,000 square foot gym in Vancouver Chinatown dedicated to mixed martial arts.
Billed as a non-intimidating, fun, and inclusive place to train, the DCS Vancouver gym offers classes and private training in Muay Thai kickboxing, boxing and jiujitsu, plus strength training and yoga sessions.
In July, Ronald will open what he calls a DCS “brother” gym here on Haida Gwaii.
It will be a much smaller venue than the busy brick gym on East Pender Street, where Ronald recently led a class of 60 people with several helpers.
DCS Haida Gwaii is in a tall and airy timber-frame building made with lumber milled on Babine Lake.
Inside is a boxing ring, Fairtex punching bags, and an MMA-style octagon. But outside, instead of Chinatown shops, condos or a steam-bun bakery, the gym looks out onto trees.
The DCS Haida Gwaii gym stands in a clearing along Tow Hill Road, a little way past the end of the pavement and two driveways short of the taco stand.
Surprising as it seems, the new gym in the woods isn’t so different from other gyms Ronald has trained in before.
Ronald and Ryan Diaz grew up in Vancouver’s Mount Pleasant neighbourhood in the 1980s. They watched a lot of ninja movies and played Street Fighter at the corner store. Their grandfather put on The Karate Kid all the time.
Mount Pleasant didn’t live up to its name back then. It had a rough reputation, and the brothers got into scraps.
But as teenagers, both found their way to martial arts — Ronald to capoeira, Ryan to Muay Thai kickboxing — and both in a serious way.
At 18, Ronald joined Ache Brazil, an award-winning capoeira band from East Vancouver. Their high-energy shows mix Brazilian music, dance, and acrobatic capoeira moves.
“We used to do 300 shows a year,” Ronald said, and they toured the world from the U.S. to Europe, Brazil, and Japan, with weekday shows at elementary and high schools and bigger ones at music festivals, even the Vancouver Olympics.
Twice, Ronald came with the band to Haida Gwaii and demoed capoeira for kids in schools from Sandspit to Masset.
At the same time, his brother Ryan was learning taekwondo, kung fu, and above all, Muay Thai kickboxing, with several trips to Thailand.
Ryan was moving up to a pro career, already fighting at a high level in mixed-martial arts. But it was a new sport, not so organized, and still a long way from mainstream success and the $1.7-billion UFC.
“Back in those days, it was hard to find a good coach to go with you and corner you in the fights,” Ronald said.
So Ronald often cornered for his brother, flying to fights across the U.S. and Japan, and helping Ryan strategize between rounds.
“If you’re in there by yourself, it’s like racing with no pit group,” Ronald said.
“Like, you’re toast.”
Both brothers also began making training trips to Thailand, where Ronald also lived for a time. Martial arts are so popular across the country, he said, even in a rural village you could go to a barn and watch fights every night.
In Vancouver, the brothers’ first home gym was an empty two-car garage at Ryan’s house.
Then they rented a place on Cambie Street. It wasn’t open all the time — other fighters would drop in and train, all by donation.
But the little Cambie gym was a hit. Ryan’s fight career was taking off, and Ronald finally decided to leave the capoeira band and take on some fights himself.
In 2015, when they opened the first DCS gym in East Vancouver, the brothers decided to branch out well beyond their amateur and pro fighter friends.
“Martial arts isn’t just for people who want to fight,” said Ronald.
“When I was growing up, it was all about ego,” he added. “But now, one of our things is ‘Leave your ego at the door.’”
“Looking at the gym and where it is now, it’s flourishing, and it’s flourishing because of that welcoming vibe.”
With more and more clients and other martial-arts gyms popping up across the city, DCS moved five years ago to its bigger spot on Pender. There are kids’ classes and anti-bullying seminars, women’s self-defense classes, and people of all ages and gender identities doing one-on-one training.
DCS continues to train amateur and pro fighters, too. They recently hosted the first Thai fighter to sign with the UFC — Loma Lookboonmee, a boxer who fought on the Thai national team who started her training age seven.
“That was huge,” said Ronald. “All of Thailand is watching.”
But just as DCS grew and grew, so did Ronald’s family, and their desire to get out of the city.
Jamie Diaz, who met Ronald through capoeira, grew up on Vancouver Island. So when she and Ronald started having kids — theirs are now six, eight, and 13 — she and Ronald looked at moving from Vancouver to one of the Gulf Islands, and having a backyard for the kids that didn’t cost a zillion dollars.
But those island towns didn’t feel right, Jamie said. Their populations swing from hundreds to thousands every tourist season.
“They lose their community every winter,” she said.
“I remember us, we drove all the way to Port Hardy and Ronald was like, ‘Do you want to keep going?”
Jamie had never been to Haida Gwaii before, but Ronald had friends who had lived here. Soon they saw a nice property for sale on Tow Hill Road.
“And then Ronald came out here, in his Converse, to walk the property,” she said, laughing.
Every year since they moved to Haida Gwaii in 2017, Ronald has wanted to open a gym. He wrestled with the Gudaangaay Tlaats’gaa Naay wrestling team and taught a few martial-arts classes through Haida Gwaii Rec, but it was tough to do without a dedicated storage and training space.
COVID-19 got in the way, and so did sky-high inflation and a lack of local builders. At one point, it looked like they might pack up for Vancouver again, where Ronald is still instructing at DCS with an 800 km commute.
But, as Jamie and Ronald said at the same time: “This is the year.”
The one who finally got things rolling was Dave Dixon of Red Dog Logging — a faller with a house in Port Clements, a sawmill on Babine Lake, and a family business full of carpenters.
Ronald had heard about Dixon through a friend, but didn’t have his number or email.
“The next morning, I went to Bayview to see if anybody knew where he lived,” he said. “Because we can do that here.”
That was in February. Now, just a few months later, Ronald and Jamie have a 24′ by 48′ gym in the yard, Fairfax punching bags and mats to unpack, and a soft opening for DCS Haida Gwaii set for July.
Tow Hill Road is a long way from Pender Street, but that’s just what Ronald said they wanted.
“We are super excited to finally get this off the ground.”