Where do you start?

You should be learning everything, but that doesn't mean much especially when there is just so much to learn in jiu jitsu and if you're a white belt that will be overwhelming.

So if you're lost and just don't know where to start and swamped with all the techniques there are in jiu jitsu, you're not alone. To be realistic, it's impossible to learn everything in jiu jitsu. So you should focus on one particular technique or position at a time and not jump around everywhere.

If you think you can learn everything, you're probably crazy. Not even black belts know everything and good at everything. Black belts are usually great at a few techniques but good at a lot of techniques. They might know a lot of techniques but just okay at them.

So where should you start?

I normally pick a technique that I naturally gravitate towards and just work on it for a few weeks and develop it until I understand the mechanics. Once I can hit it a few times in sparring I'll be ready to move to the next phase of development.

The next phase is to develop a game around this technique. I'll look for different ways to enter and then what to follow up with once I've hit the techniques.

For example, I one of the first techniques I gravitated to at the beginning was the scissor sweep. I managed to hit the sweep a few times and then I started looking for different variations of it and entries.

The next part is what to do when once I get the sweep. Because I can land in different positions and how should I respond depending on how we land. Do I start a submission or do I chase a particular pin.

Because just knowing one technique is not enough, you need build it into your game.