Thanks for all the great advice, this forum and the people on it are amazing. I will start shaving only one side of the face to not be overwhelmed as suggested. Gasman, that's a great tip on the butter knife but scary that you can wipe out an edge so easily. From the videos I've seen stropping seems relatively straightforward and I was listening for the audio feedback but maybe I heard the wrong feedback! When stropping should the blade lie completely flat on it's side? If so it doesn't seem like the edge is touching the leather and I don't hear any feedback, but when I angle it up just the slightest amount I can hear the blade making a "shush" sound across the stop so I figured that was the right way to do it.