Shoulder Rolling

[Chris Nagel]

Being able to shoulder roll depends entirely on your stance. This is where all video instructionals fail because they're using a squared up stance which is not conducive for rolling to begin with. That stance means that your shoulder would have too much distance to travel in order to be effective.

Any fighter that was good at the shoulder roll assumed a narrow/slanted stance to their opponent. There are good reasons for this. To illustrate, take a look at the following picture of Tommy Loughran in his boxing stance:



Notice how little the shoulder would have to move in order to be effective. This is key. From this stance, the shoulder roll is practically the same movement as slipping to the outside of a jab; however there are a couple of differences. First let's take a look at the shoulder roll against an opponent's right hand.

If your left hand is held lower like in the picture, then to your opponent it'll look like a big invitation for right hands. That's good for you because there's a number of ways you can defend against it, as well as following up with a counter. For one you can slip it making it travel on the outside of your shoulder, or you can roll/turn your body as to deflecting their punch to the right of your left shoulder, keeping your chin tucked into your shoulder while shifting your weight on to your right leg. This is a nifty move because your at the same time you're loading up your right hand. Countering now with your right hand is even perfect because you can thow it with all power, and your opponent's momentum from his missed right means he's going to be in a head on collision with your fist. You can even throw a right uppercut off this counter too towards their chin or solar-plexus.

Now if need be, you can also pull back onto your right foot (your right foot is flat and is turned directly to the side), then lifting your left heel off of the ground, turning it towards the same direction as your right foot. This raises your left shoulder while also pulling you away from their right hand. Once you've shifted your weight over your right leg, all that you have to do is on the balls of your feet to the left, shifting the weight onto your left leg as you launch a right handed counter. This works all sorts of right hands.

Here's a good post by Tom:

If you want to shoulder roll you're going to be standing in such a way that will invite right hands. So be ready because you're going to be getting all sorts and types of right hands thrown at you. Mostly they are thrown in desperation from your opponent. He thinks he has a free punch, see? He will try hard to get that right hand to land on you. Inside, outside, looping, straight - everything. But like I said he is just being desperate.

Trust me.

You will notice how desperate he is after you make him miss for a while. Then you will begin to notice how afraid he is to even throw the punch after you begin countering him with the right uppercut after his right hand rolls off of your shoulder.

Dont throw this counter right away. Let him get brave and allow him to think he might just land that right hand if he just tries a little harder. He will sense weakness in you and commit heavily into his right hand and try to hurt you. The counter will surprise him and scare him.

Watch James Toney. They always think they can KO James with a right hand. They're always wrong.

See it for yourself:YouTube - James Toney vs. Michael Nunn pt. 2

It's very effective, and one of the natural or flowing counters in boxing. I learned from Thomas that stance is absolutely necessary in being able to pull this off, and much of this goes against what Scrap talks about when going over posture and biomechanics. Still I feel that the advantages of that stance outweight any negatives.

You'll probably have to learn it on your own, which also may lead to you bucking heads with trainers that have different ideas about how you should stand. The shoulder-roll is a natural move but you'll still have to practice getting the timing down, getting comfortable with it, even while under pressure. Another thing that is good about it is that you don't really need your opponent to cue you in on what he's going to throw, once you realize that he's commited to his right hand, then get ready to roll. If you're already comfortable with looking for punches and countering, then you should be pretty comfortable with this move to begin with. I recommend practicing rolling their right hand inside as well as blocking it on your shoulder, or making it slip to the left of your shoulder. If you need a better idea of seeing how it works, watch guys like James Toney, Mike McCallum, Eddie Futch's fighters or many of the old-timers. Good luck.