Yeah its a ridiculous trend with modern games to give us a flimsy two page instruction manual or none at all. I used to enjoy carefully reading manuals on the way home to play a game, always was cool reading a story background and other info as well as controls!
Anyway in regards to your issue, it is usually rotate Left stick anti clockwise.
It depends on your stance also, Eg. Usually, if you are standing up and grabbed, it is Tap A to escape, if lieing down is rotate stick, and you can actually start doing the movement Before the prompt comes up, so if i grabbed im already tapping/turning stick before the prompt and my bar is like halfway up already. Same with tap RT finishing moves, you can start holding RT before it says it.
Another small tip is is that wireless controllers have a tiny input lag, as can playing on a slow television and other things can also effect how much delay there is from your controller to what you see on screen.
On RE5, if i used a wireless controller, i would struggle to quick reload in inventory quickly enough, i can feel the difference so i use wired controllers.