My knife skills should be a lot better than they are but I never had any desire to excel as a mindless kitchen drone. If I had a great knife I'd do much better. I'd guess that I've spent the better part of a waking year if my life with a chef knife or meat cleaver in my hand. You can't help but get better when you have one in you hand for 30 hours of a 40-50 hour work week.

At one time I worked at a restaurant that had all you could ear fajitas. No one worked that station more than two days a week because their hands would get so fucked up from holding a cleaver for hours on end. My right arm looked like Popeye's my left looked like a normal guys arm who never worked out. People would laugh at it when I'd show them. At the end of a shift I could neither open or close my right hand until the next morning.

I remember the despair of the entire Harvard football team coming in for fajitas mid shift.

You would be a perfectly useful kitchen drone in a week. In a month your knife skills would be way better. The competition not to suck makes people who care get better super fast.