We seem to talk about elbows alot, but what about the shoulders?
Held back? Rolling forward? Tucked up by your ears 
?
Keep the shoulders relaxed and down. Don’t over extend or hunch them forward. Don’t shrug them up or pull them back. Maintain stability of the scapula.
Dzu
Sinking of the shoulders, not just relaxing them down, often comes in handy.
But don’t confuse sinking of the shoulders down with forcing the shoulders down…
Sometimes even that is necessary, as long as good posture already exists.
How to use the shoulder
Hi,
doesn’t the Biu Dji show, how to use the shoulders, e. g. extending?
Armin.
extending the shoulders? Please explain.
Extending the shoulder
Hi Whipping Hand,
ok, I’ll try an explanation: When doing a Cup Jaan (? - the ellbow(s) in Biu Dji) you bring your ellbow to the center-line and extend your shoulder forward. Biu Dji shows you how to do this without loosing your structure.
Example: You perform a right ellbow and press your right shoulder forward/down/in the direction of the center-line. The left shoulder doesn’t go back (that would make you loose your center-line and your structure), instead it presses forward, too.
Armin.
You are taught to extend the shoulder in the biu jee form right at the very beginning. Right after the opening of the form and the punch, you shoot your fingers forward and extend your shoulder to get that extra inch or so.
From what I have learned of the biu jee form, the shoulder extension helps you to also generate power into a punch even though your are is extended. Kind of makes sense to me if you consider that biu jee is suppose to be emergency techniques that you use to get out of trouble.
My instructor told me that you should never have your arm fully extended before you make contact with your opponent. But sometimes things like this might happen, and the extension of the shoulders helps you to generate power in a fully extended punch without having to bring your arm back.