At the most basic level a Sap is basically a compact club. Give any man or woman a short heavy stick and tell them to attack an enemy and they will instinctively attempt to bash that person repeatedly in the head.

It is not an overly complex skill in the same way throwing a punch could also be called easy. The difference is of course in finessing and making a system. Strikes of all kinds can be leveraged when using saps but in this short blog post we’ll look at the bread and butter of what some call an angle one strike.

Guy Schnitzler described this first strike as almost a boxers jab.

With the sap in hand we strike out as if the sap was a stick and aim to strike our opponent with the edge of the sap.

Here we see a fixed frame example of the edge of this short sap hitting our model’s chin.

The edge I hear you ask? Why the edge? The edge is actually what ends up in the natural orientation of holding a sap. A sap is not round like a blackjack and the edge presents almost like a blade. This edge should not fool you – if we understand physics we are concentrating all the weight of the sap into this narrow edge that can deliver a concentrated hit of power. Saps can differ in design greatly, the one in the above photo is almost entirely flat on the sides, whilst others have a more raised bulbous center which would also concentrate force. (We’ll discuss flat side striking more in a subsequent post.)

The edge orientation of this strike punches power into our opponent, this technique also maps really well across disciplines. Knife work can use similar angled approaches in their training and this serves the all around practitioner well. For example a simple image search turned up this:

A sap also has the ability to be ‘stabbed’ with in the same way we stab with a knife:

Here a thrust is made at the eye to blind the target.

We make the same movement with a sap if we wish to

Once we realize that saps can be used in this manner the versatility of the tool becomes apparent but that partly glosses one of the main benefits of saps and blackjacks.

Because of the weight they carry both these impact tools generate a much greater chance, that we can further stack in our favor through training, of getting a knock out blow. That striking of the chin, the rattling of the brain, that boxers achieve when they land a knock out punch is what we are aiming for.

It usually immediately stops the threat as well, another key benefit of having this as an outcome when striking with a weighted impact weapon. Hitting the off switch on a threat with either repeated blows generating these concussions or that golden blow one strike.

Using the edge of a sap to strike may seem counter intuitive but once you practice it a few times on a heavy bag it will feel more natural.

In the next post we’ll look at strikes using the flat of a sap, the more iconic strike associated with the tool.

An edge shot against the temple, dangerous!