I just recently started honing (hell, I even started straight shaving only about four months ago) and I have to say that no matter how valuable,interesting, and so on talking to experienced people is, I'm having a blast learning to hone all by myself, and on a coticule.

I'm not saying "get a stone and scrape a blade over it until you get it right", not at all, but with some minor hints and tips, background reading and so on I got the first blade I ever honed to shave pretty damn well. I think it's also good to remind people:

Shaving and honing is not rocket science.

Nonetheless, I hope you guys had a blast at the meet-up and learned valuable things. Stubborn as I am, even I have to admit that some people are better at some things than me and might actually teach me some stuff I didn't know.