There are a lot of videos available online. While I’m not the raw beginner that these particular videos pertain to, they’re helpful reminders. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu tends to be taught in a piecemeal fashion due to the nature of its student body – a variety of people showing up on any given night with different backgrounds and levels of ability, along with an instructor who’s often a good practitioner of the art but not necessarily a good instructor.

Here’s “Charlie from the Plaza” showing some basics for the guard.

His 3 tips:

Top guy – don’t get tipped. You get tipped, you get tapped or swept.
Bottom guy – tip him. Then sweep or tap him.
Bottom guy – pull him off base when he moves. See what happens from there.

I’m sure this seems simple, but its often not spelled out to noobs and they don’t know what they should do.

I’ll add this one from Charlie as well – how to start the roll from the knees. This is another place that most new guys get thrown into without any instruction and often, no clue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjLn087ph7Y

Charlie has an interesting web site as well. Check it out. http://www.charliefromtheplaza.com/