I have read a lot about stropping techniques and was wondering if someone could help me out with what is probably an incredibly dim question.

If you have a 2 inch or 2 1/2 inch strop people recommend you use an x pattern to strop with. As a newbie, I am concerned that I may not be able to master this technique straight away. Is there any particular reason why I shouldn't split the blade into sections? I appreciate this will mean the middle gets more strokes but, for example could I do 40 straight strokes on one half and 40 straight strokes on the other half? Will the middle being stropped more times than the sides create problems?

Thanks in advance.