Get Off My Legs Gringo Review: 1001 Details from Craig Jones

Product Details

What Get Off My Legs Gringo Covers

Get Off My Legs Gringo is Craig Jones’ complete defense system against leg locks. It covers every stage of leg lock defense: prevention (keeping yourself out of leg entanglements), early escape (getting out before the submission is locked in), and late-stage survival (what to do when you’re deeply caught in cross ashi or 50/50).

Craig’s approach is described as “classically unorthodox” with little resemblance to what most people teach for leg lock defense. As one of the best leg lock attackers in grappling history, Craig knows exactly what makes a successful heel hook or knee bar. He teaches defense from the attacker’s perspective, showing you what leg lockers look for so you can deny those grips, angles, and exposures before they happen.

The instructional starts with foundational concepts like the knee line, hip positioning, and the difference between inside and outside ashi. It then moves through heel slipping mechanics, deep cross ashi survival, shallow ashi defense, outside position escapes, and finishes with a full volume on prevention from every guard position. The result is a curriculum that reads like a structured practice plan with clear progression from basic concepts to advanced counters.

Volume-by-Volume Breakdown

Volume 1: Calm Down Mate – Foundational Concepts (~1 hour)

Craig opens with his defensive framework, built around understanding what makes you vulnerable to leg locks. The volume covers the knee line concept (what controls your exposure), hip positioning differences between traditional and modern escapes, the inside vs outside distinction that underpins every defense in the system, hamstring exposure, hiding the heel, hand fighting within leg entanglements, and the height problem. There are 13 chapters total, and Craig treats this volume as the foundation for everything that follows.

Volume 2: Heel Slipping Techniques

This is where Craig teaches you to escape heel hooks that are already partially locked in. The heel slip method (adapted from Eddie Cummings’ pioneering work) forms the core technique. Craig then covers secondary leg usage when your primary leg is trapped, the two-foot problem (when both feet are in danger simultaneously), outside foot assists, the high outside slip, and late-stage hand fighting for when you’re already deep in trouble. Seven chapters of progressively worse scenarios and how to escape each one.

Volume 3: Late-Stage Cross Ashi Defense

The most technical volume, and where the star technique lives. Craig covers the Tombstone defensive position, defeating Double Trouble (when your opponent threatens two submissions at once), limiting Achilles lock pressure, shoulder height survival, surviving Crisscross when your legs are deeply entangled, hamstring exposure defense from cross ashi, inverted cross ashi defense, and the misdirectional defense. ⭐ Star Technique The misdirectional is described by Ognen Dzabirski of BJJ World as “the star of this entire instructional.” The volume ends with back step to back take, showing how to convert late-stage defense into offense.

Volume 4: Dealing With Shallow Ashi

Covers defenses against the less-deep leg entanglement positions. Craig addresses back step entries defense, Kani Basami (leg scissors) setup defense, 50/50 countering, foot crossing defense, hand fighting from shallow ashi, and what he calls the “lesser of two evils” concept for choosing which bad position to accept when escape isn’t immediately available.

Volume 5: Defending Outside Attacks

A position-by-position breakdown of outside ashi defenses. Each section runs about 10 minutes and covers a specific variant: standing ashi, split squat ashi, seated ashi, standing outside ashi, seated outside ashi, and beating the reap (defending reaping entries). Seven chapters that give you a specific defensive protocol for every outside leg attack you’ll face in competition.

Volume 6: Leg Lock Prevention – Advanced Concepts

The final and most unique volume. While most leg lock defense instructionals only teach you what to do after you’re caught, Volume 6 teaches prevention from every major guard position. Fourteen chapters cover: submission chains awareness, the kneeling vs standing misconception, defending from open guard, passing leg lockers’ guards safely, getting a leg inside from supine, beating outside entries, defending from butterfly guard, beating elevation sweeps, defending from closed guard, closed guard safety protocols, defending from half guard, knee shield, and butterfly half. This is the volume that separates GOMLG from every other leg lock defense resource.

The Misdirectional Defense: Why It’s the Star Technique

Ognen Dzabirski of BJJ World called the misdirectional “the star of this entire instructional,” and for good reason. It’s a counter-intuitive defensive concept where you redirect the attacker’s pressure in a direction they don’t expect, turning their committed attack into an escape opportunity for you.

Most leg lock defenses teach you to fight directly against the submission: pull your heel free, fight the grip, clear the knee line. The misdirectional takes a different approach. Instead of fighting the direction of the attack, you redirect momentum, creating a brief window where the attacker has committed their body weight in one direction while you escape in another.

This technique is particularly effective because experienced leg lockers have trained specifically to deal with direct defensive resistance. They expect you to pull your heel out, so they have grip sequences and body positioning to counter that. The misdirectional bypasses those counters entirely by going somewhere the attacker hasn’t prepared for.

Get Off My Legs Gringo vs Pillars of Defense (Gordon Ryan)

These are the two best leg lock defense instructionals available. Here’s how they compare:

Bottom line: If you want a prevention-first system that teaches you to avoid leg entanglements before they happen, go with Craig’s GOMLG. If you’re already getting caught regularly and need better late-stage escape sequences with competition footage showing how they work live, Gordon Ryan’s Pillars of Defense is the better pick. Ideally, you’d own both.

What Reviewers Say

BJJ World score: 8/10 overall. Ognen Dzabirski praised Craig’s unorthodox defensive approach and singled out the misdirectional defense as the standout technique. His main note was that the curriculum is dense and requires a practice plan to work through systematically.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Who Should Buy / Who Should Skip

Related Instructionals

Get Off My Legs Gringo fits into a broader ecosystem of Craig Jones instructionals and leg lock defense resources: