Do You Granby, Bro?

Posted by Fanatics Authors on November 28, 2017

One of the most important aspects of your BJJ game is your ability to get yourself out of bad situations. Escapes and reversals are crucial to begin adding to your arsenal as soon as possible. It's easy to focus the majority of one's time on the more offensive looking techniques and submissions, but without the ability to improve one's position, all the knowledge of submissions in the world won't help you if you're constantly turtled up and having opponent's take your back at will.

Being turtled up, catching your breath with your brain scrambling for what to do can be a very demoralizing position. Your opponent has their hip pressed against yours with all of their weight driving into you and they're looking to launch a back take, or perhaps a clock choke to put you out of your misery.

What can you do in this terrible spot? The Granby roll, popularized by legendary wrestling coach Billy Martin and his Granby High School wrestling program, is an excellent place to start. It can be used to completely escape and detach from your opponent, allowing you to begin launching your own offense, or it can be used to regain guard and allow you to work from there.

In the video below, Hudson Taylor demonstrates the Granby roll and discusses it's importance as a technique in and of itself, but also even more importantly as part of a chain of techniques that can allow you to put yourself in great positions. Pay special attention to the important detail about utilizing the windshield wiper motion to free your legs. This will greatly increase the success of the technique for you.

For another look at the importance that a workable knowledge of wrestling can help your overall BJJ game, check out this article from BJJ Fanatics.

Now that you have a basic understanding of the Granby roll and it's importance, check out Hudson Taylor's "Wrestling for BJJ" instructional series available in DVD and Digital On Demand formats here at BJJ Fanatics.