On thing you can do is watch the video that shows david belle's rolls and try to mimic them.

Second thing is curl up in a ball on concrete and wobble around and find a path that doesn't include pain and incorporate that into your roll.

These are things that were told to me when I was having problems with mine.

Also, seeing as you said just a BIT of pain, when you start rolling on concrete you will have a little pain. Like everything else in parkour, you have to keep practicing and progress slowly, and condition yourself, and then it won't hurt. I still have pain in my lower back when I roll on hard things, but its not like it doesn't go away. As long as the pain goes away, and I assume it does, it will prolly just take time to get used to rolling on concrete. I mean, its not like you can have a perfect roll. In a perfect roll, no matter what surface you were on, it would feel like grass, basically. And no one on earth can do that.

Try several hundred rolls on grass first.  Any areas that feel even slightly bumped / bruised will feel much worse on concrete.  Try rolls from a standing position before taking them with speed and height.

I'm skinny with a "bony" spine, and rolls should NOT hurt, even on concrete / asphalt.  There isn't a conditioning phase where you learn to deal with the pain of bruising your spine, pain simply means poor technique.

Strangely, what helped me the most was not using my hands AT ALL.  Unless you are falling from a great height, you should be able to roll directly from your feet to your preferred shoulder without even touching the ground with your palms.  Everybody's roll appears to be slightly different, but that (along with practice) seems to magically keep anything hard on my back from hitting the concrete.  Parkour rolls definately aren't vertical, but erring on the side of too horizontal can cause the same problems.

Wow I like that video, is pretty cool.. Oh yeah thats me 


Ill back that up. I have seen videos where they say, trust me it hurts but you just gotta deal with it WRONNNNNNNGG... if you are performing a good roll they should feel soft and smooth.

Well seeing as everyone seems to disagree with me, I'm gonna defend myself. At the start, when you first learn rolls, PAIN IS A TEACHER!!! It shows you what to do and what not to do. SO at first, you prolly will feel pain. Did any of you get it perfect the first time? I seriously doubt it. I'm sure that you felt some pain, and then you realized what you were doing wrong, and you fixed it, and it didn't hurt anymore.
Also the thread starter did not specify what kind of pain. Does he mean spine pain like, bone pain? If so, then yes, you're doing something wrong. But if it is just surface pain, which is what I figured, then it prolly IS just being new to rolls. For example, if you scrape your back on a roll, I would say that you maybe did a little thing wrong, but it is no big deal. Another example, if on one roll you maybe hit your back a little, and then on the next one, it is ok, then GUESS WHAT!!! You made a mistake, but your roll technique might not be all that bad.

I don't appreciate being called an idiot. I may not have a whole lot of experience, but I do know that my roll technique is pretty good, and I have never hurt myself doing ANYTHING in pk or fr. So please, if your gonna jump down my back and flat tell me I'm wrong, realize I may be confused, or I may have taken a different meaning of the original post.

Sorry but I kind of took that to mean me. Its not that you called me anything Ozzi, and maybe FSF didn't mean me either, but I just got a little pissed off when he said that.

And yes, that is what I meant. Discomfort is a lot better word than pain, cause I guess that is what you feel. I was just trying to make sure that no one tried to fix technique that was fine, only because it felt a little odd or hurt a little.

are you calling me an idiot? and if so..why?