Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston –
The traditional Brazilian martial art of jiu-jitsu isn’t
just a workout or some sport to practice for 33-year-old Sgt. 1st Class Brent
Schneider, U.S. Army North Security Operations Division noncommissioned officer
in charge at Fort Sam Houston.
It’s a therapeutic coping mechanism to help deal with the
mental wounds of war.
For the recent 2016 San Antonio International Open Jiu-Jitsu
Championship’s middleweight winner, training ensues at Ohana Academy, a local
facility on San Antonio’s east side.
Fifteen young men struggle for position in a series of
grapples and holds on soft vinyl, twisting and turning to the likes of
mainstream metal coming out of an old speaker in the top corner of the room.
“This is my second home,” Schneider said. “I can let loose
in here and be one with my people.”
His people tend to include a lot of former military, many of
whom are war veterans. Some of them suffer from PTSD.
Schneider says the benefits of jiu-jitsu in coping with PTSD
are two-fold. The first deals with the psychosomatic side of it, as the martial
art releases dopamine and adrenaline, as well as other chemicals in the brain
that stimulate the mind and senses to temporarily distract the subject from PTSD
symptoms. It also releases oxytocin, a natural stimulant, into the brain.
The second benefit is the camaraderie … the interaction and
the bonding of brothers with a common goal with shoulders to lean on to vent
issues to one another.
Schneider, with three Southwest Asia deployments under his
belt, said he’s tired of seeing his friends commit suicide and plans on
starting his own jiu-jitsu organization in the near future to help Soldiers and
former Soldiers with PTSD.
“You can get a lot out of the sport, such as the
neurological response and human interaction. The goal is to get more and more
people onto the mat who are just surviving day-to-day living with the
disorder,” Schneider said. “With increasing victories in jiu-jitsu on the mat
will come victories in day-to-day life.”
Professional mixed-martial-arts, or MMA, bantamweight
fighter and Army veteran Johnny Ray Rodriguez of San Antonio backs up
Schneider’s theory.
“A lot of veterans who suffer from PTSD need some sort of
outlet and jiu-jitsu is a positive one,” Rodriguez said. “We have a lot of
ex-military coming in here working out every day. It’s helped me out immensely.
I’d be a completely different person today if it wasn’t for jiu-jitsu.”
Rodriguez credits the sport with lowering his stress level,
and Ohana owner and operator Jason Yerrington, agrees. He says 40 to 50 percent
of his students, especially in San Antonio, are Soldiers or veterans who, while
they don’t necessarily broadcast that they have PTSD, have said that the sport
is therapeutic in some way or form.
“Everyone has some form of demon in the closet that they
need to air out, and for these guys it’s PTSD stemming from their time in
combat zone,” Yerrington said.
“They’ve got all these emotions penned upend maybe no
channels of release, but in the heat of the moment, when someone is really
trying to hurt you, everything else doesn’t matter. It comes down to survival
and that freedom is what helps and allows people to work through it.”