Practice. It is one of those things like riding a bike that you have to put in the time and mess up at if you want to master. It might take an hour or two to ge

Practice. It is one of those things like riding a bike that you have to put in the time and mess up at if you want to master. It might take an hour or two to get that first blade sharp but once you develop the skill it will become easy. The biggest thing is to pay attention to what you are doing, how you hold the blade and the movements you are making and how that affects the edge. Check the edge often and examine the marks left by the stone, nice straight parallel even grooving tells you things are as they should be; they will appear slightly curved and/or look as if they fade away if you are changing angle during the stroke. The marks will actually tell you everything you are doing wrong or right once you learn to read them and some purposeful and exaggerated 'mistakes' can be helpful in learning to read them.