Tom on the Shoulder Roll:

Quote Originally Posted by ThomasTabin View Post
I've noticed that its difficult for some guys to roll not because of the actual movement it takes to do it but because they arent in a stance suited for doing it best in the first place. For me it always worked smoothly when had my hip in front almost totally sideways like burley (the only guy ive ever seen stand so sideways) and so that i wwas leaning just a bit on my back foot so that my front (left) shoulder was slightly higher than then my right. Very old school stance you'll see it alot in the 20's, 30's fighters. This makes me naturally hard to hit with rights which was always nice. Its very natural to just roll away from them since, from that stance, you are already very hard to reach with a right (literally they have to REACH) and because im so sideways the shoulder can be turned in front of the face almost instantly. Also the right uppercut counter after rolling comes off extremely smooth from this stance. Its the most natural thing to see that counter after rolling the shoulder in such a fashion.

But you see the real sceret to the shoulder roll is not in blocking punches with your shoulder. See its really preformed more like a slip than a block. where youre rolling away from the right hand and not just eating it on your shoulder. The shoulder coming in front of the face is actually just a sort of a side effect of the rolling away movement and not the primary thing.

I'm starting to see more fighters trying to use the shoulder roll. andre berto and jean pascal spring to mind. They're pretty ineffective to me though because they stand straight up in the air like a stick and try to forcibly push their shoulder up to cover the head. They end up just eating the punch because this forces them to block and dissallows the rolling away motion so critical to the shoulder roll. because they have no rolling away motion, the right uppercut which comes off of the shoulder roll becomes difficult for them to throw and thus pretty ineffective.