Teppō

Safety

The teppō adapts the takate kote to a single arm, so rope crosses that upper arm over the radial nerve. In a 2023 Cureus case series, nine of ten people with nerve injuries after full-body suspension had radial injuries, mostly at the middle of the upper arm; Shibari Safety calls the upper arm notorious for rope nerve injuries.
ESINEM Shibari Classes warns that the brachial plexus near the armpit can be overstretched both by drawing the arms back behind the body and by suspending someone with the arms raised overhead, and that pressure forcing the shoulder down raises the risk further. The teppō places one arm in each of these directions.
In the same Cureus series, one person suspended from the torso suffered an axillary-nerve injury that the authors attribute to pressure on and overextension of the shoulder; he could not lift the arm sideways and recovered after a month.

Variations by teacher and school

The public summary of Steve Osada’s Osada-ryū course, listed at Kinbaku Academy and at ShibariClasses, says the course teaches the teppo suspension as a takatekote adapted to one arm, with the other arm bent up and the elbow above the head, that the Osada-ryū version adds safety features it does not name, and that the suspended form uses one main line to the upper body and two to the legs; the tutorial itself was not read.
The public summary of ESINEM’s course describes a different, minimalist teppozuri, with adjustable elements and an example without chest wraps, with the upper arm vertical; the tutorial itself was not read.
Rope365 describes the floor tie as one elbow pointing up with the other arm either in a box position or with its elbow pointing down, and says the position is hard to hold because the upper arm works against gravity. Rope365 calls an arm-around-the-neck variant the choking rifle tie or self-choking teppo.
Shibari Study describes the tie with one arm behind the head and the second arm around the back, Japanese Wikipedia with one arm over the shoulder and the other coming from the side to the back, and Shibari Dojo Barrie calls it a diagonal shoulder tie.

History and lineages

Steve Osada’s course pages connect the name to the firearms the Portuguese brought to Japan in the 16th century, saying that rifles slung over soldiers’ shoulders inspired the teppō shibari and, later, its suspended form, teppozuri (鉄砲吊り). The same pages credit the late Akechi Denki with making the suspension popular, and present the Osada-ryū version as adding several safety features, which they do not name. Shibari Study and Andrea Ropes both give kariudo shibari (hunter tie) as another name for the same tie; Shibari Study explains it by the look of a rifle or spear carried over the back.

The public summary of ESINEM’s teppozuri course describes a minimalist design developed in rope-lab sessions with aims including comfort and keeping the upper arm from dropping; the tutorial itself was not read. Rope365 calls the teppō shibari the most classic of the asymmetric arm ties.

Structure, difficulty and risk

Osada describes the tie as an adaptation of the takate kote built on one arm only, with the other arm bent upward. Sources disagree on how hard it is. The Osada-ryū pages call it fairly complicated, though they say it can be broken into small units that beginners can follow, while Shibari Dojo Barrie includes teppō shibari, which it calls a diagonal shoulder tie, in its Shoden curriculum. Kinbaku World chooses the more cautious intermediate level. Because the tie combines upper-arm rope with one arm raised over the shoulder, and is also tied in suspension, its risk is given as high. This page describes the tie; it does not teach it.