Remember that Griffon always gives you choices, in this case you can drop down one level and register KeyEventListeners on the target component. Another option would to be to use the keyStrokeAction
node exposed by SwingBuilder, like it's shown by the slideware
plugin here https://github.com/griffon/griffon-slideware-plugin/blob/master/griffon-app/views/griffon/plugins/slideware/DeckPlayerView.groovy
keyStrokeAction(component: deck,
keyStroke: shortcut('UP'),
condition: 'in focused window',
action: lookupAction)