  Given a semi-Riemannian manifold, we give necessary and sufficient conditions
for a Riemannian submanifold of arbitrary co-dimension to be umbilical along
normal directions. We do that by using the so-called \emph{total shear tensor},
i.e., the trace-free part of the second fundamental form. We define the
\emph{shear space} and the \emph{umbilical space} as the spaces generated by
the total shear tensor and by the umbilical vector fields, respectively. We
show that the sum of their dimensions must equal the co-dimension.
