What submissions does a beginner learn first?

A submission is a hold that makes somebody quit. A choke on the neck, or a lock on a joint. You are not going to learn fifty of them. You will learn a few and you will learn them until they bore you.

Rear naked choke first, usually. You are behind them, your arm goes around the front of the neck, your other hand hides the elbow, and you squeeze the sides. No grips, no cloth, nothing to hold on to. That is why it is the king of no-gi.

Then the armbar. Trap one arm, put your hip against the elbow, straighten it out. It will teach you more about where your hips are than any warm-up drill ever does.

Then the guillotine, which you meet because somebody shot a bad double leg and left their head on the outside. Wrap the neck, sit down.

Notice what those three have in common. Every one of them comes out of a position you already own. That is the actual lesson. Submissions are not something you chase, they are what falls out when the position is right. Beginners who go hunting for finishes get passed, swept, and end up flat on their back wondering what happened. Beginners who learn to hold a spot get handed finishes for free.

So your first few months are mostly position. Keep your guard. Get on top and stay there. Take the back. Get up off the floor. The chokes come along for the ride.

Two things get learned at the same time, not later. First, where these live, which is nearly always the guard or the back. What guard is will do more for your armbar than a fourth technique would. Second, how to let go. Every hold you learn to put on, you learn to release the instant you feel the tap. See what tapping means. That release, and the slow application before it, is the whole reason chokes and armlocks are safe to train every week for twenty years.

And reading about an armbar does nothing for you. The angle, the pinch of the knees, the exact half second you fall back. Somebody has to put their hands on you and fix it. That is what the one-on-one sessions are for.