I understood at the beginning that if your strop width is narrower than the length of your blade, then some sort of compensatory pattern (such as the popular X-pattern) is necessary to keep a consistent razor edge all the way accross it. Well, sort of from the beginning, but after I had already bought my beginner strop, which is not a paddle! So I did the best I could with that, but I was never comfortable with stropping in an X because I found it difficult to avoid rocking my blade over that part of the strop which it was in contact with while I was drawing it accross, and I knew this would cause my edge to warp. Then I realized that you can maintain nearly full contact for the length of your stroke if you begin with the outer end of your blade perpendicular to the inside end of your strop, and end it with that part of your blade facing perpendicular to the outside end of your strop (cycling vice-versa, of course). This forms an arcing pattern. Although it causes your blade edge to travel at an angle which is not perpendicular to the length of your strop, I tend to feel more confident in my consistency of contact with the leather, and what I am wondering is whether that alone is not the bottom line for results. I haven't the experience (and possibly not the sensitivity) to notice a small degree of negative impact from this change, and then I probably never did the X-pattern right, therefore how would I know? So far I've done better with the arc pattern than with what I have been doing (a clumsy X), but do you think it's important that I should work on my X-stroke for best results, or to avoid trouble over time?