The shoulder roll

Source: Volume 01, §8 — ▶Watch §8 The Shoulder Roll at 00:50:20   (full transcript)

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Verbatim from the transcript

The major skill you need if you want to defend turtle position, front headlock, and even just develop overall mobility and movement when rolling with your partner is the ability to hit a proper shoulder roll.

There are some mechanical elements that will help you hit a better shoulder roll, and a lot of it comes out of understanding what you're trying to do — and what you're not trying to do.

8.1 What the old way got wrong

In the old days, the shoulder roll was thought of as a speed move: you just drop your shoulder, whip your legs around, get your legs in front of you. In a lot of cases it worked. But if it failed, it tended to fail spectacularly.

The old method: partner is off to the side, you drop this shoulder to the floor, roll your body through, try to get legs back in front. Broadly taught as "just try to get your legs back around in front of your partner."

But there are things you can learn to do that will make your job a lot easier.

8.2 The correct mechanics, step by step

We'll use shoulder roll out of a number of different scenarios.

Starting conditions — don't roll from hip-to-hip glue. First thing: we don't usually want to hit a shoulder roll when our hips are glued to our partner's hips. If his hips are right on top of my hips, this is not a great time to shoulder roll. If his hands are locked down at my waist, also not a great time. We need a little bit of separation — because if there's no separation, even a good roll won't succeed in separating his chest from my back. He'll just roll with you. At about halfway through, you'll end up either with crab-ride hooks or he'll throw his hooks back in.

The purpose of the roll is to get your back to the floor. If you don't create enough separation initially, you'll never get your back to the floor — and if you can't, you might as well not roll at all.

So step 1: create separation. If your partner has a tight waist (hand in), one of the best things you can learn to do is take that hand and have some confidence to move that hand to the outside. That's the first thing.

Step 2: Swisher the feet. Take your feet and turn them out in the direction you're rolling. It's possible to hit a shoulder roll on the near side without moving your feet, but it's more difficult. Best practice: with your head down, move your feet out to the side.

Step 3: Step the outside leg up. This helps create more distance and gives our hips some height.

Step 4: The shoulder goes to the mat. It's very important to get comfortable putting your shoulder on the mat. How: take your right hand and reach it toward your left knee. The goal is for the right hand to go under the left leg. Then — first the head, then the shoulder — go to the floor. Now we're in a position with knee down, leg up.

Step 5: Don't flop onto your back. When you go to roll, if you just try to flop down — just turn over — you'll get about this far and then your hips will fall down into his lap. It gets worse if your partner is pulling your hip — if he's pulling at all and you don't hit a proper roll, you'll often end up getting dropped down to your back. This is arguable whether better or not; at least now you face each other and can try to regard, but it's still not ideal — a missed opportunity.

Step 6: Get your inside knee up off the mat. After getting to this position, even if Chris is close, get your inside knee off the mat. When the knee comes off the mat, you can use it to drive, to push into your partner.

8.3 Aim hips at the armpit, not at the hips

Step 7: Push hips into your partner's armpit — not his hips.

This is very specific: our hips into his armpit. Even if you just make your body strong here — even if he's resistant, pushing back — you have the force of your legs to push your hips into him.

If you have limited flexibility, the position with two shoulders on the mat and head between your knees might be hard — but you're not going to hang out there. You're going to take your legs and add them to the weight over your partner's body. That gives you the space to put your feet back in front. Practically, this is what happens in a lot of the cases: even when you can be proactive and come back into triangles, upper-body attacks, lower-body attacks — often, especially with someone stronger and more athletic, you're going to find that pushing your hips up into your partner's armpit and putting the weight of your legs down on top of them is critical.

[!PRINCIPLE] Hips → armpit, not hips → hips If you aim your hips at your partner's hips, you're going to get collapsed. Aim instead at his armpit. Once you push into his armpit and he pulls his arm back / retracts and squares up to you, you'll often find yourself in some form of open guard.

8.4 If you get stuck: walk on your shoulders

If you ever get stuck in your shoulder roll — you have a very big partner, you're pushing your hips up into their armpit, they're pushing back, you're stuck — you need to be ready to walk on your shoulders. All that means is a shimmying action with your two shoulders, walking backwards along the mat. From there, take inside position with your legs, and you're ready to play.

8.5 Flexibility adjustments

If flexibility is an issue:

• You won't be able to hang out in those compressed positions — doesn't matter.
• Your goal is still aiming your hips up to your partner's armpit, not down by their hips.
• Get to the initial posture (right shoulder down, left leg up).
• When you go to roll, sweep your head through as close as you can.
• You may find it easier to walk out a bit — and then come up into the same posture. Even from there, you can push off and use the momentum of your legs to put weight on him, then start to pull your legs.

Flexibility issues shouldn't stop you from doing the mechanically correct shoulder roll. When you start being confident doing that, a lot of stuff from guard — even just guard retention — benefits from this. And if you're talking about regarding from turtle, it's going to be much easier.

[!DRILL] Shoulder roll — mechanical sequence (summary)

1. Clear the hand (create separation from tight waist).
2. Swisher the feet to the outside.
3. Step the outside leg up.
4. Head down, shoulder down. Right hand reaches for left knee (and under the left leg).
5. Lift inside knee off the mat. Foot plants, ready to drive.
6. Push hips up to the armpit — not the hips.
7. If stuck, shoulder-walk backwards and take inside position with the legs.

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Connections

• Principle that governs it: Back to the floor. The shoulder roll is the primary jiu-jitsu tool for enacting this principle.
• Supported by: Grip fighting — step 1 is "clear the hand," which is a grip-fighting action. Without grip control, step 1 fails and the whole sequence fails.
• Alternative to: Standing up. When you can't or don't want to roll, you stand. Glick frames these two as the chained pair that covers the cases where the other doesn't work.
• Extends into: guard retention outside of front-headlock/turtle contexts. The mechanics (head down first, then shoulder, hips at armpit) apply anywhere you're trying to rotate under pressure.
• Common failure mode: flopping instead of rolling (step 5). This is the failure Glick explicitly flags; a failed shoulder roll drops you onto your back flat, facing partner — survivable but a missed opportunity.