About a month or so ago, I put a(nother) nick in my hanging leather strop. This one's on the edge, right in the middle of the strop, and I wasn't sure that I'd be able to repair it well enough that I could continue to strop with it, so I figured I'd have to buy a new leather. I figured in the meantime I'd just use my travel leather strop, which is just a 3" X 13" piece that I lay flat on the counter. Well, procrastinator that I am, days turned into about 4 or 5 weeks before I got around to ordering a new piece of leather. Stropping on leather laid flat on a hard surface was slower--very slow at first--but when I got my new hanging leather last week and put it on , I noticed right away that my technique had improved drastically in the month I was stropping on the flat. I should mention that I started straight shaving and stropping back in May 2010. I think my stropping was fine before, judging by the shaves I've consistently gotten, but something is noticeable different in my stropping now. I think stropping on a hard, flat surface really helped me learn what lightest pressure combined with consistent edge contact feels like. It also really helped with how I flip the razor at the end of each stroke, even with a couple of my razors that are very loose in the pivot. Just wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience.