For the last couple of months I've been dutifully stropping my razors before and after each shave, and usually in between passes. I've also stropped the daylights out of them (70-100 laps) after honing. Having seen first hand what can happen when poor stropping leads to a rolled edge, I've been careful to gently but quickly glide the razor across the the strop, and all has been more or less well.

Well, sort of. I've also noticed that stropping has had little or no affect on the sharpness of my razor. This got me to thinking I might be doing it wrong so after spending some quality time checking the wiki and some threads on the subject I decided to try a firmer hand when stropping. I stropped my favorite razor last night with about twice as much pressure as I usually use, a firm even stroke is about the best I can describe it.

It felt like the blade was magnetized to the strop, the sound of the stropping action was one smooth continuous sound, and after 50 laps the razor went from "yeah, this is good to shave with" to absolutely the sharpest razor I own. It's effortlessly popping arm hairs without touching skin and consistently passing HHT at a much higher level than I'm accustomed to. Is this normal?