Im only a lowely blue belt but when some new white belts come who have no grappling background spar with me or if the instructor is too busy then they ask me what they should be learning first and what to do when they get a position in sparring. Most of the guys in my gym or affiliated gyms are either blue belts or high tier weight belts who might as well have been blue. So when the instructor teachers, its mostly higher level stuff. Which can be hard for a beginner to comprehend and they feel overwhelmed by it. I normally say to the new guys to learn the hip escape, really practice shrimping, the upa, an armbar, choke or triangle from the guard. I try and tell them about the heirachy or positions. Not too use to much strength, to use hip mobility and use other limbs as braces whilst using the hips. I wonder what other guys on this forum would recommend. Also taking self defense for women into consideration. It seems to me that the majority of girls are going to be taken down and overpowered so some form of guard would be more important to learn.
What you said sounds good. Maybe also add that they should learn how to close the gap and clinch with an opponent. A takedown and how to maintain the mount and back positions also.
Check out the four links under Basics here: CMU Grappling Club - Techniques For beginners, I like to split up groundwork into the four phases as seen there. Each link has a very basic introduction to the principles of the phase and some techniques to drill. It is meant to be able to be easily taught to a beginner with absolutely zero experience in about 30-45 minutes. Once a week we had a beginner's class at our club. I would rotate through each phase on a weekly basis. The idea was that then if a beginner came to each class for a whole month, he would have at least a basic idea of what to do in each position. Hopefully that information might give you some ideas to work from if you need to teach beginners.
The first thing I think that always needs to be addressed is closing the distance on your opponent. The beginner needs to understand that BJJ is about closing the distance on your opponent so your superior ground skills can dominate the strength of your opponent.
