Fighting Positions for the Japanese Sai

Video Transcript

"Michael Lewis with Yeshuas Ryu martial arts, on behalf of Expert Village. We're here today to cover the sai. There are two main positions in order to hold your sai. The first position is more of a shorter stem on one side that you can use for punching and the longer part of the stem down running along your arm that you use for blocking. This way that you hold it, sort of tucked into your thumb, it hangs in, and then you grab with your three fingers on the other side, using your pointer finger to run along the handle. That way you're able to keep it nice and tight up against your arm, which is very important. You do not want it hanging out there, you want to keep it nice and tight, especially if you are going to block or strike with it. Now the second position is to flip it out and then be able to use it as a stabbing technique, or still yet even blocking if you have another strike coming in you are able to hook in and block that technique. Now, in order to transition from position to position what you do is you take your hand and you sort of let the sai hang in the hook there of your thumb, and then you take your fingers and run them around across the handle. Then you flip it out, and then there you go, you have it, you've gone into your second position. Another important thing is to make sure that your thumb ends up on the knot, right here behind the stem. This is very important. You don't want it hanging over the sais just in case you're blocking because if you do, you can get your thumb smashed. So again, you have it hooked in here, your pointer finger is running along the side so you can keep it pressed up against your arm, you take your hand over, you flip it over and grab, and then continue to just flip it right on over, sliding your thumb behind the night. And those are your two basic positions of the sai."