Navigating from neutral to advantage: The story of every jiu jitsu match is the same – your quest to advance over time from neutral positions (starting) to advantageous positions (finishing). Usually this cycle has to be repeated several times before a decisive victory is achieved as your opponent will typically escape quite often when you get a good position on him. Like any other act of navigation in your life, you have options. Just as you have a favorite way to drive home, the shortest way home, the most scenic way home, a new and interesting way home, the long way home etc so too in jiu jitsu, you have many ways from your standard starting positions into your finishing positions. The most important thing in this sport is to have A CLEAR sense of direction from all the major starting positions. No sense of direction will immediately result in no movement and no movement means your opponent will swarm all over you. If you don't have a clear sense of direction from a given starting point, you need to figure that out first before you can expect any techniques to succeed. remember – techniques without direction are random – direction without technique won't even get started. KNOW WHERE YOU WANT TO go AND KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO TO GET THERE and you will be very successful in this game
