Thread: Proper form

I was having trouble honing.No matter how lightly I set the razor on the hone and applied no pressure my edges were still uneven and I felt heavy handed. Then I remembered someone on here telling me to make sure your wrist and elbow are in alignment with each other. That little bit has been some of the best advice I have received. As soon as I did that no more heavy hand feeling and razor really glides down the hone. Are there any other little things form wise that a beginner needs to know?

Yes there are, but mainly take your time. Muscle memory takes some time to develope. During that period you can develope good, correct memory but also bad, incorrect memory.
Assuming you are talking about palm honing one thing that helps is to let your stone hand be part of the stroke, not just your razor hand.
Also watch the wave of the lube in front of the blade as you work through your stroke. That will show you how well the edge is contacting the stone. It should move evenly in front of the edge the entire length and not go under it.

How about the proper flip. After you know how to hone you can flip backasswards but until then always flip keeping the spine on the hone.

One thing that helped me was getting the full edge from heal to tip set at the same time. I would get the heal right but the tip not or vise versa. So i kept going. I found this to not work for me. Kill the edge and go again
You will find more and more of the edge getting set even if you have to kill the edge 6 or 8 times. So learn to kill an edge without a lot of damage. After some time the entire edge will come together all at the same time. Uniformity is the best way to go.