I also thought that Brazilian meant totally bare, even around back. Or is it just the technique used regardless of the areas removed?
A normal bikini wax only cleans up the hair that is outside a bathing suit, which is a very small area on the tippy-top of a lady's thighs and slightly out to the front.
A Brazilian cleans up ALL the hair, including the tiny amount that a lady has on her perineum, bum, and on the labia majora. Sometimes a small landing strip is left on the mons pubis, but many ladies opt to have every single bit of hair waxed off. Because I was in so much pain, she left a triangle instead of a strip.
Here's a SFW video of women going through the process. I got sympathy pains just watching it. Somebody nice will probably have flashbacks.
Out of curiosity, how large are the strips for each pull?
It depends. My waxer used a special type of wax designed for this application. It hardens itself and you don't have to push a cloth strip into the hot wax. She preps the Area with a cotton pad, applies the hot wax with a small popsicle-sized stick (unlike the tongue-depressor size that they use for waxing legs), waits for the wax to harden, then she rips it off in one lightning-fast move and immediately presses hard on the freshly waxed area to help stop the pain and close the pores.
Most of the strips were small, maybe 1/2" by 2". Like most ladies, I have a small Area but it still took forever to clean it up. Some of the strips were slightly larger. She showed me some of the strips, and it was pretty crazy to see all those follicles.