Tying with cuffs

Buckle a cuff onto each limb first, two flat fingers of room under each, and only then clip the two rings together.

How it is done

Cuffs invert the order of everything else: fastening onto the body and joining the two together are separate moves, and doing them in that order is what makes cuffs the forgiving option. Buckle each cuff on, check two flat fingers under each one, and only then clip or lock the rings to each other. Leave about a finger of slack between the rings — enough that a hand can turn, not enough to slip out. If a padlock closes that join, the spare key goes somewhere a bound hand could already reach before the lock shuts, not after.

What goes wrong with this one

The cuff itself is the safe part; the join is where people get hurt, by clipping two rings so short that a shoulder ends up holding the position.