I think I was 9 or 10 when I first got a Arkansas stone from my uncle. He showed me how to apply the oil, hold a angle, and the basics of what I needed to do to sharpen a knife. He in a way explained the burr but showed me more on how to check for it, showing me how a knife would shave one way and not the other and a method I still use today of dragging/stropping the edge on my finger nail to feel the imperfections. I was in awe that a piece of metal could get so sharp and that a stone was doing it.
My memory of sharpening is a little foggy from then until now, I didn't have the passion and focus I have for it now and payed more attention to getting it done rather than HOW i was doing it. I'm the type that's never happy with "good enough" though, and due to some of the jobs I've had my quality standards are exceptionally high and my love of science keeps me looking deeper into the subject. Before the internet I had no idea the amount of stones or sharpening tools you could get and used nothing more than a medium Arkansas stone. But one day I thought "there must be a better way" so I went in search of a new stone. I found the spyderco ceramics and decided to try out the medium stone, I was amazed by the speed that the stone worked and nearly double the sharpness I was getting. I went on to researching all I could about sharpening at this point (thanks to the web) and started picking up more tools to get sharper.
I stumbled upon the HandAmerican web site and read everything before finally buying some leather and liquid Chromium Oxide. Just as described my edges became duller before they got sharper, I practiced until I got it right though and started getting edges so sharp I was amazed once again at what I had found. I was happy at this point and saw no need to try anything different so I stuck with it for a good long time, but then I found Blade forums.
Before signing up I read through pages and pages on sharpening, I never had anyone to tell me what I was doing wrong or answer the questions I had so most of what I knew was from trial and error. After reading I decided to sign up and dig deeper into what all of the sudden became an obsession. It was like the flood gates opened and all the things I didn't understand became clear, filling in the blanks on 15 years of learning it myself. I found a thread on splitting hairs and thought dam that's sharp, so I wanted to see if I could do it. I took my sharpest knife and not surprisingly I couldn't do it. So I sat down with my strop and stropped until my edge was sharper than ever and able to split a hair.
This is the point I started looking back and looking close, and in a way relearned sharpening from finish to start instead of start to finish. So in other words I started learning more about setting a proper bevel and how to take that to a finished state. I also started looking very close at the edge and as they say a picture is worth a 1000 words. It has brought me answers for the sharpening side and the cutting side, showing me what was really happening and broken a lot of myths I've heard in the past.
I finally progressed on to Diamond stones and compounds as I feel they give me the very best results. I've used them for about 2 years now and will probably never change from here, until I get too old to see what I'm doing then I might buy a EP
So 19-20 years later I'm here typing out my story of sharpening and expanding my knowledge to what I've discovered as a art that I love.
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