More progress and some observations

A few months ago I wrote about my progress with straight razor shaving, and how after about a year of trying, my shaves had become smoother and better. My point then was that there is some development of either touch or eye hand coordination that "clicks" in after months of practice. Since then I've had 2 other breakthroughs. One is stropping - until recently my stropping only made matters worse. I read extensively, watched videos etc but couldnt reliably improve my edges. I had been using 3" strops to avoid X patterning but then got a 1 1/2 inch Dovo strop for travel. Again, something clicked on this strop and I was able to transfer the touch to my others strops successfully. The second epiphany was gleaned from posts here about how light the shaving touch needs to be. I thought I was already using minimum pressure, but as I focused on lighter and lighter touch the shaves improved even more. My "touch up areas" no longer include my chin and I'm now down to a couple of odd patches on my neck that need a double edge touch up.
I hope this encourages newcomers to keep at it - the learning process is a long one and will have some frustrating plateaus, but persistence will pay off.

I couldn't agree more on the light touch.

I think too many of us sometimes forget that its the razor that does the cutting, not our hands. IMO, a well honed and stropped razor needs no help to cut hairs, just guidance.

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Originally Posted by Papertiger

A few months ago I wrote about my progress with straight razor shaving, and how after about a year of trying...SNIP...

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I admire your determination and can't really say for sure I would've stuck with it. I'm certainly glad you did though because I know how much enjoyment I get out of shaving now instead of dreading it. Encouragment for anyone new to wet shaving is important because I know how frustrated I was in the beginning. New guys just think: razor bumps, razor burn and less than stellar shaves gone forever!!! Vive la wet shaving! :rock:

I think even the guys who have been doing this for decades still learn something new every now and then, so that just goes to show that you never stop learning.

That's why sometimes after a year of shaving I prefer to open different sources with theory and read everything again.... there is always to find something new and useful