Safety cutters for shibari, a buyer's guide

For most people the best safety cutter for shibari is a basic pair of EMT shears. They cost €8, come free with every kit we sell, and are enough for floor practice. Keep them where you can reach them without looking.

Rope is replaceable. Your partner is not. If someone is unresponsive, cannot breathe freely, or is in sudden severe pain, cut rather than untie. Numbness or tingling is not that: adjust the wrap first. If the rope is holding weight off the ground, read the suspension section before you cut anything.

At a glance

Tool	Price	What it does	When to choose
Basic EMT shears (we sell)	€8, or free with any kit	Cuts 5-6 mm rope; the edge dulls within a handful of cuts	First pair, spare pair, classroom kit
Folding heavy-duty shears (we sell)	€35, or +€27 over the kit price	Cuts 8 mm rope and keeps cutting far longer	Once you are cutting rope regularly rather than rarely
Leatherman Raptor Rescue	€109 from Leatherman EU	Shears plus oxygen wrench, ring cutter, strap cutter, glass breaker, ruler	If you want the brand-name build and the 25-year warranty
Leatherman Raptor Response	€95 from Leatherman EU	Shears with fewer tools than the Rescue	€14 less than the Rescue, lighter, fewer tools
CT Rope Cutter	From climbing retailers	Circular blades, locking, built for a tensioned line in a rescue	A climbing tool, and often cheaper than ours
Kitchen scissors	n/a	Cuts rope badly, with risk to the body	Do not use

How to cut rope off someone

Pick the cut point before the blade moves. This part matters more than the tool.

• Cut on the outside of a limb, never the inside, where the large vessels and nerves run.
• Never cut across the neck or the face.
• If you cannot get a finger between the rope and the skin, that is not the place to cut. Move along the wrap to somewhere you can.
• Do not cut blind, under a wrap whose far side you cannot see.

Then:

1. Stabilise first. Support the body and control the tension before anything is cut. A cut changes where the load sits.
2. Slide the blunt tip under the rope, flat face against the body. Do not force it through a gap that is too tight.
3. Squeeze, keeping the blades angled away from skin.
4. Stop and look. One cut can release more than you intended, because tension runs through a tie rather than sitting in one wrap. Reassess before the next one.

Once the immediate problem is controlled, take the remaining wraps off calmly.

Practise before you need to. Cut up a rope you have retired, in an unhurried moment, with the pair you actually carry. You find out how much force it takes, whether the shears are still sharp, and what the tool feels like in your hand.

Do it once more on a sample secured at both ends under moderate tension, because tensioned rope cuts differently from slack rope. Keep faces and people out of the recoil path. Never practise on a line that is supporting a person.

This page is what we have learned from selling and using these tools. It is not medical or emergency training. If someone is unresponsive or struggling to breathe, call 112 while you work.

Suspension changes the answer

Everything above assumes the rope is not holding someone off the ground.

Cutting a rope under load immediately changes how the person’s weight is supported. It can invert someone, shock-load the lines still holding them, or drop them head first. Whether to cut at all, or to lower on the hardware instead, and which line comes off first, depends on the specific suspension, the body position, and who else is in the room.

That is learned in a room, with a spotter and a mat, and rehearsed before anyone is lifted. We sell the shears. We are not going to teach this in an article. Tsuri Neko teaches in Leuven, and so do the other schools listed on tsurineko.org.

What we sell

Basic EMT shears, €8 standalone, free with every kit

Blunt tip, plastic handles in black or orange depending on the batch. Made for emergency medical work and repurposed for rope. Sold elsewhere as trauma shears: same tool, different shelf.

They cut a new 5-6 mm rope in a single firm squeeze in our testing, and the edge dulls within a handful of cuts. That is the honest shape of them. They are an emergency tool that sits unused and stays sharp, not a rope-cutting tool for regular use.

Every starter kit, practice kit, and full kit ships with a pair at no extra cost. They suit an introduction class, and they suit floor practice at home.

Folding heavy-duty shears, €35 standalone, or +€27 over a kit

Unbranded folding multi-tool shear, blunt tip, serrated edge, supplied with a belt sheath. A glow-in-the-dark variant is available with a matching sheath, which is worth having if you tie in low light.

They cut 8 mm rope without trouble and they have kept cutting far longer for us than a pair of EMT shears does.

Why people upgrade. It is not that EMT shears cut badly. It is that they have a handful of good cuts in them before they blunt. That suits an emergency tool: it sits in the bag, stays sharp, and works on the day you need it. It suits regular rope-cutting much less well. If you are cutting rope often rather than rarely, heavy-duty shears are the ones that stay useful.

What we do not sell, and why

Leatherman Raptor Rescue, €109 from Leatherman EU

A good tool. Folding, blunt tip, oxygen-tank wrench, strap cutter, glass breaker, ring cutter, ruler, and Leatherman’s 25-year warranty.

We do not stock it. A €109 tool is a lot of stock for a shop our size to hold, and our folding shears do the rope-cutting job for a third of it. What the Leatherman adds is the extra tools, most of them for ambulance work rather than rope, plus the warranty and the resale value. If those matter to you, buy direct from Leatherman EU. The Raptor Response is €95, with fewer tools than the Rescue.

CT Rope Cutter, from climbing retailers

A climbing tool from Climbing Technology. Circular blades, a locking mechanism, built to cut a tensioned line in a rescue.

It works on shibari rope, and depending on the retailer it can cost less than our folding shears do. We would still choose blunt-tipped shears for work against skin: the cutter is a single-purpose tool with an exposed head, made for a line running away from a body rather than a wrap sitting against one. If you already own one for climbing, keep it.

Kitchen and household scissors

Do not use them. The sharp tip finds skin under stress, and the blade geometry gives slow, ragged cuts on rope.

Kitchen shears will cut rope cleanly on a worktop, with two hands, unhurried. The same shears in one hand, against a body, in low light, will not. If the only thing in reach during a tie is kitchen scissors, the fix is where you keep your kit, not how you cut this time.

Rescue knives with rope hooks

Some emergency-response pocket knives carry a hook on the spine, made to slip under rope and cut outward. They work in trained hands, and they need thumb deployment, a clean line of approach, and the regular practice first responders get.

If you are confident with your own knife, use it. Otherwise, shears. Sliding a blunt tip under a wrap and squeezing removes the problem of choosing a line of approach in a hurry.

Where to keep them

A cutter you cannot find is not a cutter.

• On your person whenever you are tying. A belt clip, a pocket, a sheath.
• Visible in the room, so your partner can reach it without asking you where it is.
• In your kit bag, in the same pocket every time.

shibarisafety.com says the same about the first and third of those, and adds one we would not have thought of: practise using them in low light.

One pair on you and one pair where you tie covers floor practice at home. Elsewhere, one pair on the person. Placement matters more than what you spent.

Test them, and know what the test tells you

A new pair, or any pair unused for months, should cut a 6 mm rope in one firm squeeze, cleanly, without rocking the handle.

That is a bench test on one rope. A real cut-out is not one rope: a double-column tie is four to six passes, and working through them takes several cuts and some repositioning. The test tells you the pair is sharp. It does not tell you one squeeze will finish the job.

If the pair has dulled, or you are unsure of it, replace it. Do not move a pair that failed the test into the spare role, because the spare is the pair you will reach for when the first one is not where you left it.

How many pairs

• One to start, which comes free with every kit.
• Two once you tie regularly. One on you, one where you tie.
• Three or more if you teach, run workshops, or move kit between venues.

What we actually do

We carry folding heavy-duty shears on a belt clip when teaching, a pair of EMT shears in the kit bag, and a pair next to where rope hangs at home. The EMT pair in the starter kit is the same model we use as a second-line cutter.

Every kit ships with basic EMT shears at no extra charge, because sourcing shears separately is one more thing between a beginner and their first class. Heavy-duty shears are a paid upgrade of +€27 on the kit price.

For the wider first-buyer question see the starter-kit guide. The inspection routine that catches problems before they reach the cutting stage is in rope care.