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Had a veteran butcher call out my knife angles
I was breaking down a side of beef last Tuesday and an old-timer watched me work for a minute before saying "you're fighting the blade, not letting it ride." He showed me how my forearm was twisting sideways on the sirloin cuts, costing me speed and leaving jagged edges. Anyone else had to unlearn bad knife habits after years of doing it wrong?
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wadew511mo ago
Had a similar thing happen with a welder who watched me bead up some pipe and just said "your wrist is lying to you." Took me forever to realize I was tensing up on the fillet welds because I learned from a guy who liked to muscle through everything. That old timer @kelly385 is onto something about the older approaches not matching how things actually go, because sometimes you pick up bad habits from people who mean well but their method just doesn't fit your body. The forearm twist thing sounds like you were overcorrecting for something that probably worked fine on lighter cuts but broke down on beef where the blade needs to find its own path through the grain.
6
Six years in and I still disagree with that old school angle advice.
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kelly3851mo ago
Honestly, @corablack I'm right there with you. That whole "keep your head down and follow the grind" thing just doesn't hit the same when you've been around long enough to see it fail. I've watched too many people burn out trying that old advice, and it never seems to account for the actual messiness of real projects. Tbh, I think the newer approaches that focus on adapting as you go make way more sense for how things actually work. Ngl, it feels good to hear someone else say it out loud.
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