Spend five minutes watching a highly-trained sushi chef or experienced woodworker, and you'll soon realize that technique is critical when using a blade. The level of precision demonstrated by these skilled individuals takes decades of practice to achieve — in many cases, they'll make cuts look easy until you attempt to imitate them. These pros also usually have a good grasp on safety, and know how to avoid catastrophic injuries while using their tools.

So, even if you own a high-quality knife made from top-shelf steel, it's essential to constantly be improving your cutting technique. Adjusting your grip depending on the circumstances is one way to improve performance. The firm grip you'd use to hack through brush is not the same one you'd need for delicate skinning or shaving feather sticks.

The improvised wood planer method pulls wood along a stationary blade hammered into a stump.

In the video below, Schrade Knives demonstrates a few of the basic backwoods grip styles and cutting skills, including a few you may not know about. While may seem a little heavy-handed with its product placement and slick infomercial-style voice-over, there's good information to be had here. The chest lever and wood planer methods are especially interesting.

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Written by Patrick McCarthy