Hey everybody, Ritchie Yip here talking again with our ultimate cross side escape game plan. This is part five in a six-part series. Today, we’re going to talk about the Granby escape from bottom cross side.
The Granby is an escape that I think is super popular. The best jiu-jitsu practitioners in the world use the Granby to escape bottom cross side.
We’re going to talk about the dynamic, athletic way of doing the Grandy. What I call the “young punk” way of doing it, and then I’m going to talk about the way that I do it – the old man jiu-jitsu way of doing it. But first, the young punk way.
So, Stephan is passed my guard, he’s in cross side, he’s crushing me out, right? Now from here I can’t turn in to Stephan, so I’m going to turn away, right? I’m going to turn away from Stephan.
Now, if I get my guard passed, I may need to turn away from my opponent in order to stay safe.
If I was twenty years younger, all I would need to do to escape would be to invert, bump my opponent and swing my leg all the way around. And suddenly, I’ve escaped cross side.
But, I don’t do that anymore.
I always want to make sure my spine and my neck are safe when I hit the Granby escape.
And also, as a teacher, I see tonnes of people putting a lot of strain on their necks when they’re doing the Granby and they are getting smashed.
So, in order to go and make sure that everybody’s cervical spine stays safe I teach the old man way of doing the Granby, which I actually think is a better way of doing it.
So, if I get my guard passed, I may need to turn away. I first check my opponent’s shoulder.
Now from here, I’m going to bring my nose to my knees. Once I have this, I’m going to use my forearm and I bring my chest out proud. So there’s a conduit of force between my elbow into my shoulder.
I’m going to go push out a little bit and then bring my hip where my elbow is.
I basically use my hip and my butt to keep my opponent away from me.
Of course I don’t want to fight people with my butt. I just keep my hip up for a split moment until I can safely turn and face my opponent with my guard.
You see how the Granby is basically my hip being used as a way to maintain distance. Just like my shin is a way to maintain distance when I’m fighting from the guard. Whether it’s my shin, my foot or my hip.. It makes no difference, right?
So, this is how you do the old man jiu-jitsu Granby. At no point in time was my neck being compressed. And you don’t need athleticism to do this. The Granby is a great way to escape bottom cross side. Give it a try and let me know what you think in the comments below.
