I'm only at this a little less than a year, but I am constantly trying and learning new directions, approaches, grips, stretching and strokes. I find that the more I pay attention to my face between passes, the more I learn about how inconsistent the direction of my beard is. I used to just lather, then re-lather and do pass after pass. Of course for me, a "pass" is never really a classic pass, because I adjust midway through each part of my face depending on what I'm hearing from the razor and feeling on my face. However, I benefit greatly from rinsing between lathe rings and feeling my beard in the process, to see what I've got left and what direction it's growing in. Makes me wonder how I got by just swiping around with a cartridge razor all those years.