Martial Arts Gym Owner Fights Through Pandemic Woes

OCEANSIDE, NY — After absorbing a financial gut punch from the COVID-19 pandemic and shutdowns at his martial arts gym in Lynbrook, Christian Defiris dusted himself off and personally built a new facility in Oceanside.

Defiris and his remaining students reconstructed the former Century 21 office, at 2911 Long Beach Rd., into the new home for ECF Elite Martial Arts & Fitness. At 4,000 square feet, the new digs are half the size of his former gym on Sunrise Highway, where his lease had expired and he opted to move rather than pay a significant post-shutdown rental hike.

“I couldn't keep a gym that size with 50 percent of the students,” said Defiris, a five-time martial arts champion. “So I did the smart thing and downsized instead of being stubborn and holding onto a dream that I couldn’t maintain.”

His struggles started on March 16, 2020, when amid the COVID outbreak he was forced to close his Lynbrook gym that he had called home since 2014. A month later, he set up an outdoor kickboxing gym in its parking lot, charging students $10 to $15 a class while he continued to pay his rent. He also created a studio in his apartment where he held free online cardio kickboxing and strength training classes via Zoom, Facebook and Instagram.

“That was to keep my mind sane, keep my body right, and to give back to the community, because I knew tons of people who were just stuck at home, depressed, and had nothing to do and weren’t working,” he said.

After meeting health department protocols, Defiris managed to legally reopen his gym in late August 2020. But only 30 of his 175 pre-pandemic students returned, and as the pandemic raged on, he maxed out at just 80 members. The crisis took a toll, hurtling him into debt.

“But like the champion that I am, I never gave up and I never quit, and I just started hunting for good spaces, which are far and few between for my open-space set up,” he said.

He visited more than 40 properties before landing an affordable space in Oceanside. He split the double-unit property into a room for kickboxing and boxing, and the other for Brazilian jiu jitsu, wrestling and judo.

The gym walls are decorated with Defiris' belts, medals and framed press clippings that he racked up as a three-time Muay Thai kickboxing, one-time Mixed Martial Arts and one superfight Brazilian jiu jitsu champion, as well as a fight promoter who helped get MMA legalized in New York state. Today, when training his students, he proudly ties his gi uniform with blackbelts for Brazilian jiu jitsu and Muay Thai.

Although his gym has changed, Defiris’ mission remains the same: using martial arts to change people’s lives for the better—and to produce champions.

Among his most successful younger students are a sibling duo from Oceanside, Nicholas Nilsen, 12, and P.J. Nilsen, 11, who joined ECF six years ago and have won a collective 20 jiu jitsu tournaments.

ECF runs anti-bullying programs for children four years and older that teaches them how to handle themselves in various scenarios. Paul Pirrello, a 21-year-old US Army reserve from Hempstead, joined ECF when Defiris held classes in his Lynbrook parking lot. Defiris recalls that when Pirrello came to him, “he was in a very fragile state. He had no direction. Didn’t feel like he fit in anywhere. Had no friends. Then he found me and the kid is now a super athlete filled with confidence and has friends. He just won his first cage fight within one minute of the first round.”

Pirrello credits Defiris with helping him learn how to fight and boosting his self-esteem.

“There are a lot of people out there who say they can teach you stuff but they really can’t,” Pirrello said. “This is a very legit place that teaches you stuff that really works. And I was able to go into the ring and test it and prove that it works.”

Gianna Petruccelli, a 17-year-old Valley Stream resident, followed Defiris to Oceanside after joining his gym three years ago, roughly when she was diagnosed with diabetes. She stuck with her training mainly for its health benefits.

“After I kept coming here more and more each day, I realized that my blood sugars were becoming more stabilized,” she said. “So, I just kept coming and coming.”

Cliff Julien is among ECF's older students. A neighbor of Defiris in Lynbrook, he was a 50-year-old longtime smoker who was overweight and flirting with suffering a stroke when he was persuaded to join his gym in 2017. Within the first 10 months, Julien quit smoking and dropped 110 pounds, from 274 to 164. Today, he wears a well-earned Muay Thai purple belt.

“Christian stayed on me about my smoking for many years,” he recalled. “He knew something was wrong with me. He saved my life. I know without him I wouldn’t be here today.”