
Originally Posted by
Liquidrob
Its not an interview, he shows the technique on Mendes brothers online, but like I said, he gets the figure four than sits up to the side and cranks down on there forehead while squeezing and twisting
Yeah, he also prefers to chair sit to the back while doing it, so it's almost like a no-gi version of the arm-in ezekiel choke, and it ends up being a little more like that (or an arm-in RNC if that helps) than an arm triangle, although he definitely still uses the figure-4 from the top to finish as well.
Ryan's position is pretty nuanced, that you should be able to choke people with arm-in chokes (arm triangles, darces, anacondas, ezekiels, etc) without using a squeeze, and that proper limb placement and simply holding the position should be what puts the opponent to sleep. He obviously also stresses that when you're going for real, you should try to tear their head off, and he will try to rip your head clean off, but that a hard squeeze should never be a substitute for perfect technique.
Rafa's position on blood chokes is a little more "rough and tough" for lack of a better word. I've trained with him on some no-gi chokes, and he is very open about doing chokes in a specific way so that they cause a lot of pain and discomfort on top of the choke. The arm triangle video on their site that you saw is a good example of that, as is a cool RNC and a cool anaconda variation that he has for each that cause a ton of pain.
Jiu-Jitsu is awesome.