The Roll Step to Avoid the Cross and Hook

When it comes to rolling under the punches you hear a few different terms to describe the motion. Commonly we hear the bob and weave, another variation is the slide in which you come in under the punches such as the hook but there is also a very effective strategy called the roll step which I am going to go over in this article today.

The roll step is a move which is used to roll under the cross or the hook – so what is the difference between a roll step and just bobbing and weaving or sliding under punches? The difference is as the name says, the ‘step’. When roll stepping you are not just rolling under punches but you do so whilst simultaneously moving your feet.

Moving the feet is the big difference here and instrumental when pulling off this move. For example if I roll under a left hook but hold my feet, this means I come up in the same position and this results in you being at risk of getting caught with a follow up shot – if you roll under the hook if the opponent then follows up with a right cross, you’ve just come back up in the same position from rolling under the hook and gone straight into the right cross…

The way to get around this is by roll stepping. So if I roll under a right cross, as an orthodox fighter I step up and over with my lead foot so I come back up in a different position and out of harm’s way, this is called the roll step in. Now if I was roll stepping against the left hook I would roll whilst stepping out with my back foot and this is called the roll step out.

You can add punches after the roll step too, for example after the roll step in I might throw the left hook, right cross and after the roll step out I could throw the right cross followed by the left hook. The video below looks at an example of the roll step being put to good use by the untouchable one, the defensive maestro, Nicolino Locche.