According to Brazilian sources: The backstory is that a beginner came to train at this BJJ academy in Brazil and asked to roll with the instructor, in a disrespectful manner. The black belt instructor rolls with him normally and applies a bread cutter choke. The beginner doesn’t want to tap and gets put to sleep. You can see by the nonchalant attitude of the instructor that there is bad blood and that he doesn’t care for the beginner as he leaves him on the floor without reviving him. The other team mates also laugh at him and leave him there.

Dangers of choke outs:

There is debate over the dangers of choke-outs. After 4 to 6 minutes of sustained cerebral anoxia, permanent brain damage will begin to occur, but the long-term effects of a controlled choke-out for less than 4 minutes (as most are applied for mere seconds and released when unconsciousness is achieved) are disputed. However, everyone should note that generally loss of oxygen is never safe and always (even if minimal) causes death of brain cells. There is always risk of short-term memory loss, hemorrhage and harm to the retina, concussions from falling when unconscious, stroke, seizures, permanent brain damage, coma, and even death.

Some argue that when pressure is applied to the carotid artery, the baroreceptors send a signal to the brain via the glossopharyngeal nerve and the heart via the vagus nerve. This signal tells the heart to reduce volume of blood per heartbeat, typically up to one-third, in order to further relieve high pressure. There is a slight chance of the rate dropping to zero, or flatline (systole). However, there are several studies that showed choking out will result in a few seconds of flat line ECG for a few seconds at least in half of the subjects. This might suggest that choking out or syncope is not as safe as it was assumed to be previously.

Some argue that with thousands of tournaments since the sport of Judo began in 1882, hundreds of thousands of chokes have been applied, and the probability of hundreds if not thousands of choke-outs, with no reported deaths due to chokes, the chances of asystole are slim. It might be true that no direct death has reported as a result of chokes but there are numerous reports of these chokes turned out to strokes leaving the subject with permanent brain damage or possible more elaborated long-term effects.

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