How to Flip Someone over Your Shoulder

Co-authored by John Graden

Last Updated: August 26, 2024

Have you ever wanted to flip someone over your shoulder? Well you've come to the right place. This article has instructions on how to perform this maneuver in martial art type training.

Steps

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Have your hands on their shoulders and their hands on your shoulders. Make sure that your hands are inside. This is a general description and will need to be adapted in any real fight situation.
Grab their arm. Place your bottom into their hips, bend over, squat, and lift, while pulling their arm forward. You should be able to hold them on your hips.^{[1]
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Roll them off of your hip. Flipping them straight over your back or high into the air gives them a chance to recover and land or their feet or in some other stabilized position. It also has a great chance of straining your back if done improperly. You want to drop them from hip height, before they can right themselves. The goal is to let the ground knock the wind out of them.^{[2]
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- Trained people can counteract this by releasing a kiai and knowing how to break their fall.
Once they are on the ground make sure they slap the floor as they hit to prevent friction. Do Not Let Go of them until they have been on the floor for about two seconds.

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What will happen if the other person does not catch my shoulders?

Community Answer

An alternate method is to grab his/her wrists and flip the person; however, this method requires much more strength, and isn't used quite as often.

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What if the opponent is taller or heavier?

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Grab his arm with force, get in the position and get your knees flexed in the air. In this case, the gravity can really help to flip him over your shoulder.

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Does it cause the person pain?

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If completed properly, then yes. Flipping people over your shoulder will send a shock through their nerves into their brain. It's hard to flip someone over your shoulder and not hurt them.

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Tips

Start out practicing on a good mat or on a trampoline.^{[3]
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If you can grab their arm, there is another way to "take them down" or put them on their back. This decreases risk of injury. Once you have their hand/arm in hand take it and put it diagonally behind them. So if you have their right hand, put it behind their left foot, or vice versa.

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Make sure they are around your height it's a little difficult to flip someone too short or tall your first time.

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Be careful when you do this. If someone grabs your arm as you're throwing them and you happen to get a good throw off, they could end up pulling on your rotator cuff, which really hurts. I should know, because it just happened to me!

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Warnings

Do not let go of their arm, if you do, you both are in danger of injury.

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Don't rip a muscle.

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Don't make them smack you in the head.

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Use a mat to start out to avoid injury.

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Do not dislocate their shoulder.

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Do not hurt the person.

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