How to Cut With a Japanese Knife: Push Cut and Pull Cut Technique

Most cooks learn to chop by rocking a Western chef's knife back and forth. Then they pick up a Japanese gyuto or nakiri, try the same motion, and the food sticks, tears, or comes out uneven. The knife feels wrong. It isn't. The motion is.

Japanese knives are built flat. They want a different stroke: the push cut and the pull cut. Both are slicing motions, not chopping motions. And there's real physics behind why they cut cleaner with less force. This guide breaks down both strokes, when to use each, and how to keep your fingers safe while you learn.

Quick Answer

Push cut: drive the blade forward and down in one diagonal stroke. Best for vegetables on a flat-profile knife (nakiri, santoku, gyuto).
Pull cut: draw the blade back toward you in one smooth stroke. Best for soft proteins and sashimi on long blades (yanagiba, sujihiki).
Why it works: adding a slicing motion can cut the downward force you need to roughly one-tenth of a straight press-down chop (Science of Sharp, 2021).
Skip the rocking motion: rocking needs a curved Western belly; flat Japanese profiles are made to slice, not roll.

Why Don't Japanese Knives Rock Like Western Knives?

The answer is in the shape of the edge. Hold a German chef's knife next to a Japanese nakiri and you'll see it instantly.

A Western chef's knife (think Wüsthof or Henckels) has a pronounced curved belly. That curve is the whole point. You plant the tip on the board, lift the heel, and roll the blade forward through the food. The curve lets the edge stay in contact with the board as it rocks. Even when you do rock, blade control starts with a proper pinch grip on the handle, as Wüsthof's own grip guide (2024) lays out.

Japanese knives are different. A nakiri or usuba is nearly flat from heel to tip. There's no belly to roll on. When you try to rock a flat blade, only a small section touches the board at any moment, and the food gets crushed instead of cut. As Japanese Knife Lab (2026) puts it, the nakiri's flat edge "makes complete contact with the cutting board on every stroke."

That flat profile is a feature, not a flaw. It's tuned for two strokes:

The push cut (oshi-giri) — forward and down
The pull cut (hiki-giri) — backward and down

Both are slicing motions. Neither is a chop. Once you stop fighting the flat profile and lean into slicing, the knife starts to feel like it was reading your mind.

What's the difference between a chop, a push cut, and a pull cut?

Here's the whole vocabulary in one table.

Stroke	Motion	Blade direction	Best knife profile	Best foods
Rock chop (Western)	Roll heel-to-tip on the board	Forward arc	Curved belly (German chef's)	Herbs, garlic, mince
Straight chop	Press straight down	Vertical only	Cleavers	Bone-in, hard squash
Push cut (oshi-giri)	Forward and down together	Diagonal, away from you	Flat (nakiri, santoku, gyuto)	Vegetables, firm produce
Pull cut (hiki-giri)	Backward and down together	Diagonal, toward you	Long, flat (yanagiba, sujihiki)	Soft proteins, fish, sashimi

The straight chop is the one to avoid for most work. Pressing straight down crushes food before the edge separates it. The push and pull both add a horizontal slice, and that horizontal motion is where all the magic lives.

What Does the Science Say About Slicing vs. Pressing?

This is the part most knife guides skip. There's actual published research on why slicing beats pressing, and the numbers are dramatic.

A straight press-down chop forces the edge through the food by brute compression. You squeeze the carrot until the cells burst. Add a horizontal slicing motion and something different happens: the edge does the work over a longer path, so you need far less downward force.

Materials scientist Tony Atkins quantified this. His 2004 study in the Journal of Materials Science — "Cutting, by 'pressing and slicing,' of thin floppy slices of materials illustrated by experiments on cheddar cheese and salami" (volume 39, 2004) — measured cutting forces while varying the slice/push ratio. That ratio is the blade's sideways speed divided by its downward speed.

The Science of Sharp lab (2021) walks through Atkins' results in plain terms. At a slice-push ratio of 3 — say, cutting a 1-inch-thick piece by traveling 3 inches sideways — the vertical force drops to about one-tenth of what a straight press-down cut needs. The horizontal force you supply is only about 3/10 of the original. You're trading a hard push down for an easy glide sideways.

Atkins later generalized the principle in a 2016 paper in Interface Focus, "Slice–push, formation of grooves and the scale effect in cutting" (2016). His conclusion: "Forces are smaller the greater the slice–push ratio." There's a catch — the gains taper off. He notes a "law of diminishing returns" once the slice ratio gets very large. So you don't need a comically long sawing motion. A moderate forward or backward glide already captures most of the benefit.

How much force does slicing actually save?

Slice/push ratio	Roughly what it means	Vertical force vs. straight press
0	Pure press-down chop	100% (full force)
~1	Equal sideways and down	Sharply reduced
~3	3 in. sideways per 1 in. down	≈10% of full force
Very high	Long sawing stroke	Lowest, but diminishing returns

Source: Science of Sharp (2021), summarizing Atkins (2004), Journal of Materials Science 39: 2761-2766.

The takeaway: slicing doesn't reduce the total work, it spreads it over distance — the way a long ramp lets you raise a weight with less force than a vertical lift. Your wrist, your edge, and your tomato all thank you.

How Do You Do a Push Cut?

The push cut is your everyday vegetable stroke. It's the Japanese answer to the Western rock chop, and once it clicks it's faster and cleaner. Our gyuto vs. santoku breakdown covers which flat-profile knife suits your hands; either works for this.

Step by step:

Grip the knife with a pinch grip. Pinch the blade just ahead of the handle between thumb and the side of your index finger. The other three fingers wrap the handle. This gives you blade control a handle-only grip can't (Gygi, 2024).
Set your guiding hand in the claw. Tuck your fingertips under so your knuckles face the blade. The flat of the knife rides against your knuckles, and the edge can never reach your fingertips.
Start with the heel high, tip near the board. Lift the heel of the blade slightly.
Push forward and down in one move. Drive the blade away from you and down at the same time, so the edge travels through the food on a diagonal. Don't press straight down.
Let the blade glide off the board, then lift and reset. The food separates cleanly. Move your claw hand back a slice-width and repeat.

The whole motion is forward, down, off. Think of pushing the edge through the food, not crushing into it. Musashi Hamono (2025) describes it as a single diagonal stroke — lift, then push forward and down together.

Which knives are built for the push cut?

Flat profiles. The flatter the edge, the better the push cut works, because more of the edge contacts the board on each stroke.

Knife	Profile	Push-cut fit	Notes
Nakiri	Very flat, no belly	Excellent	Purpose-built for vegetable push cuts
Usuba	Flat, single bevel	Excellent	Pro version of the nakiri; steeper learning curve
Santoku	Mostly flat, slight curve	Very good	The everyday all-rounder in Japanese homes
Gyuto	Flatter than German, some belly	Good	Versatile; can also do a gentle rock

If you want to go deeper on these shapes, see our Japanese knife shapes explained guide and the nakiri vs. usuba comparison.

How Do You Do a Pull Cut?

The pull cut is the mirror image of the push. Instead of driving the blade away, you draw it back toward your body. It shines on soft, delicate foods that a downward chop would smash — fish, soft cheeses, ripe tomatoes, and above all, sashimi.

Step by step:

Grip and set the claw exactly as you would for a push cut.
Place the heel of the blade at the far edge of the food. For a long slice, start with the heel on the far side and the tip pointing slightly up.
Draw the blade back toward you, down and back together. Let the long edge travel through the food as you pull.
Use the whole blade, heel to tip, in one stroke. Don't saw back and forth. One direction, one cut.
Lift, reset, repeat.

The single-direction rule matters most for fish. Sawing back and forth tears the delicate flesh and leaves a ragged, dull surface. One clean pull leaves a mirror-smooth face that looks professional and keeps the fish's texture intact.

Why is the pull cut the rule for sashimi?

Because the yanagiba — the willow-leaf sashimi knife — is designed around it. The name means "willow blade," for its long, slim, leaf-like shape. Koi Knives (2025) describes the technique this way: the chef "places the blade at the far end of a fish fillet and draws it back in one fluid motion, letting the knife's exceptional sharpness do the work," producing mirror-smooth slices.

The technique, drawn from traditional practice and detailed by retailers like Hocho Knife: position the heel at the far end of the fillet, angle the blade slightly away, and draw it toward you in a single smooth motion using the full length of the blade. The cardinal sin is the push-pull sawing motion of a Western slicer. One stroke, one cut.

For more on the blade itself, see our yanagiba sashimi knife breakdown.

Soft-food task	Stroke	Knife	Why
Sashimi / raw fish	Single pull, heel-to-tip	Yanagiba	Preserves texture, mirror finish
Slicing cooked roast	Long pull	Sujihiki	Long edge, one clean stroke per slice
Ripe tomato	Gentle pull or push	Gyuto / petty	Avoids crushing soft skin
Soft cheese	Pull	Any sharp thin blade	Less smearing than pressing down

Push Cut or Pull Cut: Which Should You Use When?

Quick mental model: firm foods you push, soft foods you pull. Firm vegetables hold their shape, so a forward-and-down push slices through them cleanly. Soft proteins collapse under pressure, so you draw the blade back and let sharpness — not force — do the work.

Food	Recommended stroke	Best knife
Onions, carrots, cabbage	Push cut	Nakiri, santoku, gyuto
Potatoes, daikon, squash	Push cut (firm pressure)	Nakiri, gyuto
Garlic, ginger, shallots	Push cut, fine	Petty, santoku
Boneless fish fillet	Pull cut, single stroke	Yanagiba, sujihiki
Cooked meat / roast	Pull cut	Sujihiki, gyuto
Tomatoes, soft fruit	Gentle pull or push	Petty, gyuto
Herbs	Light push (or rock on a gyuto)	Gyuto, santoku

Many cooks blend the two without thinking. A long gyuto can push on the way down and finish with a slight pull. That's fine. The point is to keep the edge moving sideways through the food. As long as you're slicing and not pressing, you're working with the physics, not against it.

How Do You Keep Your Fingers Safe?

Japanese knives are thin and brutally sharp. The flip side of a clean cut is a clean cut to your finger. Two habits prevent almost every kitchen knife injury.

1. The claw grip on your guiding hand. Tuck your fingertips under so your knuckles point toward the blade. The flat side of the knife rides along your knuckles, which act as a wall. Even if the blade slips, your tucked fingertips sit safely behind your knuckles, out of reach (nouveau raw, 2024).

2. Move the knife, not the food into the knife. Don't shove food at the blade. Keep your guiding hand and the knife moving along the food in controlled steps. Lower the knuckles to feed the next slice, never your fingertips.

A third habit specific to Japanese steel: keep the knife sharp. A dull edge needs more force, which means more slipping and more crushed food. Counterintuitively, a sharper knife is a safer knife because it bites where you put it. If your edge is fading, our whetstone sharpening guide walks through restoring it.

One more note on Japanese knives in particular: they're hard. Many are run at 58-64 HRC — versus roughly 52-58 HRC for Western blades (Kasumi Japan, 2024) — which holds a fine edge beautifully but chips if you twist or pry. The push and pull strokes keep the edge moving straight through food with no lateral stress. Rocking and prying are exactly what chip a hard Japanese edge — another reason the slicing strokes suit these blades.

Why Does Slicing Protect the Edge and the Food?

Two payoffs come from slicing instead of pressing: a cleaner cut and a longer-lasting edge.

Cleaner food. A push or pull stroke separates plant cells along a line rather than crushing a whole band of them. Less crushing means less cell rupture, which means less weeping, browning, and that sad limp look. Pressing down on a tomato squashes it; slicing through it leaves a crisp face.

Longer edge life. Because slicing needs roughly one-tenth the downward force of a press cut (Science of Sharp, 2021), the thin Japanese edge takes far less impact stress against the board. Japanese knives are ground to acute angles — often 15° or less per side, versus around 20° on Western knives — for that razor bite. Our sharpening angles guide covers why the geometry matters. That thin edge is fragile under impact but thrives when it glides. Slicing plays to its strength.

It also helps your board. A flat blade slicing cleanly off a soft cutting surface — hinoki or end-grain — keeps both edge and board in better shape than repeated hard chopping. If you're still on a hard plastic or glass board, that's another edge-killer worth fixing.

Common Mistakes (and Quick Fixes)

Mistake	What goes wrong	Fix
Rocking a flat blade	Food crushes; uneven cuts	Switch to push or pull stroke
Pressing straight down	Needs 10x the force; smashes soft food	Add a forward or backward slice
Sawing fish back and forth	Tears flesh; dull, ragged face	One single pull stroke, heel to tip
Handle-only grip	No blade control; wobble	Use the pinch grip on the blade
Flat fingertips on the food	Easy to slice a finger	Claw grip — tuck fingertips back
Twisting or prying with the tip	Chips the hard edge	Keep strokes straight through the food

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I rock a Japanese gyuto like a Western chef's knife?

A little, but not much. A gyuto has a flatter profile than a German chef's knife, with only a gentle belly near the tip. You can do a small rock for herbs or garlic, but for most cutting the push cut is faster and cleaner. A nakiri or santoku is nearly flat and shouldn't be rocked at all — rocking a flat blade just crushes food because only part of the edge touches the board.

Why does slicing take less force than chopping straight down?

Because slicing spreads the work over a longer distance, like a ramp instead of a vertical lift. Research by materials scientist Tony Atkins (Journal of Materials Science, 2004) found that adding a forward slice at a 3:1 slice-to-push ratio cut the downward force needed to about one-tenth of a straight press-down. You're trading a hard push down for an easy glide sideways.

What's the difference between a push cut and a pull cut?

Direction. In a push cut you drive the blade forward and down, away from your body — best for firm vegetables. In a pull cut you draw the blade back toward you and down — best for soft proteins and fish. Both are slicing motions, not chops. Firm foods you push; soft foods you pull.

Why do you only pull a yanagiba in one direction?

To protect the fish. The yanagiba's long single-bevel blade is built for one smooth pulling stroke from heel to tip. Sawing back and forth tears the delicate flesh and leaves a ragged, dull surface (Koi Knives, 2025). One clean pull gives the mirror-smooth slice you want for sashimi and preserves the fish's texture.

Will push and pull cutting chip my Japanese knife?

The opposite — they protect it. Japanese knives are hard (often 58-64 HRC, versus 52-58 HRC for Western blades) and thin, which makes them prone to chipping under impact or twisting. Push and pull strokes move the edge straight through food with no lateral stress, while rocking, prying, and twisting are what cause chips. Keep strokes straight, use a soft cutting board, and the edge lasts far longer.

Sources: Science of Sharp (2021); Atkins, "Slice–push, formation of grooves and the scale effect in cutting," Interface Focus (2016); Musashi Hamono (2025); Japanese Knife Lab (2026); Koi Knives (2025); Hocho Knife; Kasumi Japan (2024); Gygi (2024); nouveau raw (2024); Wüsthof (2024).

This guide is for general kitchen education. Knife work carries a risk of injury — cut at a comfortable pace, keep your blades sharp, and use a claw grip to protect your fingers.

-- The Blade & Steel Team