 Hey guys, this is Matt Beck from Gratitude Education, and I'm excited to be starting this live web series with you guys every Wednesday morning Basically prepping for my day in the salon. So before we open we thought we'd do some just quick hair cutting tips So this isn't going to be a long class, but they'll get longer and longer as we work our way through the web series But today what I really want to focus on is hand and body position Really developing a relationship between the scissor the comb your mind and your body So a couple things that I've done and what you'll see here is the way that I like to practice when I'm cutting hair Mannequin heads are one of those things that most hairdressers look at it as a $30 thick head and it's expensive And you know you never want to buy it because you don't want to waste the money Well, this is one of the best things that you can do is have a mannequin head to work on in the salon or at home and really practice and Learn to cut hair. So Where I think we're open if you leave a comment, I'll be able to see if you have a question throughout this Like I said, it's not gonna be super long. So obviously I have to cut hair today as well So I want to break down a few things that I do to make hair cutting easier for me So we have our mannequin on a stand obviously I like to set up to stand a certain way So the way that we start this out is I like to have the foot of the stand in between my legs because What that's going to do is allow me to make to pay attention to my body position So as I'm looking down at the mannequin if my foot tries to move away It's gonna hit the stand so I know that I'm staying in the back So I like to line it up that way have everything easy to work with so that we can Move the stand around. I think that's another important thing is to make sure that anytime you're cutting hair Whether it's with a mannequin on a stand or in the chair with a guest You want to be able to move them around move their head around to make you comfortable? The more comfortable you are Obviously the better your haircuts are gonna turn out So the other thing you're gonna see that I did here is I created a box with tape The reason I did this was because this is gonna tell me where I'm standing and where you're standing in a haircut If you're consistent with that, you're gonna have the best haircut that you've ever had so Even if you did this for a day in the salon and just taped off a box No one's gonna know what it is and even if they did people would look at it like You're learning and you're bettering yourself. So I don't think that this is a big deal to do So we take off a box. Hopefully you can see it And if let's say I was going to cut a balanced shape on a haircut So I wanted to have consistent weight distribution throughout the haircut I could follow this box with my feet and as long as I stay within this box all the way around I'm gonna have a balanced haircut Pending my hand position and where that goes, but most important thing is to start with your feet and work your way up So working with the box then if I wanted to cut more of a rounded Open shape on a head then I could work my way around and step in this corner and cut the hair If I wanted to create more of a closed shape push the weight towards the face Then I would just keep my feet to stand in between my feet Over-direct things back and push the weight forward. So, you know, we're gonna get into weight control next week But I really want to work on the feet part first. So just try this tip create a cool little box You know, try to stay at home first. I would say and really work with the mannequin. I think for me When I as I work to try to become a better and better hair cutter It's really at home that I that I do that and you know get a mannequin get a bottle of wine whatever you want to do a beer and Just sit down and cut hair and spend time doing it and it's going to make you better and better So try out the box see what you think post comments. I'd love to hear about it then when we talk about the relationship between the scissor the comb and Really your mindset The comb to me is the most important part of hairdressing Because it's what's going to keep everything clean The scissor is just the tool that's going to remove the bulk So the comb as I comb through the hair I want to make sure I have really clean partings working through but then the most important thing is my hand position So let's say that I want to cut a balance shape in the haircut If I pull the hair out or I over direct the hair out from the head here and I cut it, but I cut it offset. I'm still standing balanced or square But I'm bringing it back and I tilt my hand a little bit not thinking it's going to throw off the whole entire haircut So it's really a huge relationship between your feet and your hands So my hand my feet are square with the head balanced here. I Over direct the hair out or I pull the hair straight out from the head I cut that and I make sure that my line with my hand is lined up with that line that I have on the floor So as long as I have that lined up then I'm going to create a balance shape Then same thing if we're trying to push the weight towards the face And I over direct the hair back here as long as I keep it with this line, but I'm pulling the hair back It's gonna in the end result close off the shape of the haircut. So That's the important part there. The other thing is getting comfortable with your comb So this is something I'll get a little bit closer We were working with over the last few days in the classrooms that we've been in while we were out of the salon Taking your comb and just getting comfortable with the scissor and comb. So what I would do especially in hair school 10 years ago was Really work comb and scissor in my hand. So I would be combing the hair Then I would flip this scissor out practice cutting. So it's really just working. I can work on top of my fingers comb Work on top of my fingers Comb so it's just getting fluid with that motion and then once you're comfortable with that your haircuts are going to get a lot More consistent. So let's look at the scissor breakdown here And you're working with a tool a lot of people have asked me what scissor I use this one's a casho scissor I really love it. It's from the Millennium series They don't pay me to say that so but this is what I use on a daily basis in the salon but I like about Cutting with scissors is as we're working with our hands here for working palm to palm You just want that one blade to move some of the tips for that for me I like to take the scissor in my hand just like this Push it back into my hand a little bit. It makes it tighter and the tighter the scissor is The easier it is to just throw your thumb in there Just the tip of your thumb and move that blade So just try that because one when I have it up in the front of my hand here It's weaker. So I don't have as good a grip on it. So I just tilt it back a little bit makes it tighter I have my thumb in and then I can work just moving the one blade Scissors design this way. It's supposed to just have that one blade moving and then this blade comes down Pushes the hair against the other blade and cuts it off So you're going to get more consistent lines if you're just moving the one blade So that's how I want to do this first in the web series was to make sure that we break down every little aspect before we even cut hair Because you're not doing all this stuff the right way and you need to adjust it Then you're not going to have great haircuts in the outcome. So working here, I Just practice palm to palm working with the one blade over my fingers working with one blade and then going through here in point cutting Just using the one blade and the cool thing about this here is I can go through and cut I don't have to worry about cutting myself because that one blade is not moving. It's resting on my finger and the other one is just coming through and cut so Exercise that you could do while you're watching TV tonight Maybe throughout the slime while you're not busy today is just really work on combing and Cutting and just passing the comb back and forth then work on flipping the comb over So that you can get quicker with that as well Because as you're combing through the hair you need to use both sides of the comb So we're going to be using a side with less tension aside with more tension for different things So as we kind of work through this web series every Wednesday We're going to come in we're going to do little tips like this And I just want you to practice them throughout the week if you're going to follow along Because at the end of this when we start actually cutting hair you're going to have these things down And it'll be a lot easier when we get working cutting hair. So a Couple things. Let's just recap on what we talked about today working on the body position Create the box the box is cool because It allows you to understand where you're cutting corners where you might be rounding off shapes One of the biggest things in the classes this weekend that I noticed with people's hands is Even if we pull up the hair to cut it in a balanced way We pull it up and then as we start to cut We round and we round everything off because of the fact that it's a safety thing for us So the worst haircut I ever cut was when I first decided that I'd like to be a precision cutter and not Cut hair in crazy ways. I wanted to try to create shapes Well when you actually start trying to create shapes It's scary because you're going to push weight in the places that you didn't want it So as hairdressers we've adapted to the fact that we can hold hair up Cut it and round it off So make sure when you're cutting hair that the line that you create with your fingers is the line that you cut And then make sure that that line is on purpose. So everything that I'm pulling out Body position stays key Use the lines that we put on the floor hold your hands out follow that line with your cutting and And see the shapes that you create like I said, this is a great thing purchase a mannequin go online They're 30 bucks It's worth the investment because you can practice over and over again You can get five to ten haircuts out of a mannequin if you want to just do little trims on it as you work a shape and My recommendation would be buy one mannequin Start long work one haircut Let's just say we do a one-length haircut We do that one-length haircut over and over again half inch at a time to really just practice and build a shape it And like I said, it's not as important to create a perfect haircut right away It's getting the little tips and tricks down so that you're more consistent and you can create a better haircut So please if you have comments or questions leave them Throughout on the page and we'll answer them The greatest thing about having this YouTube channel is that we can communicate and connect with you guys Also, check out our website because we post Education on a weekly basis. It's all free for hairdressers our goal. We just love doing education So we want to share it with you and make things easier for everyone. So Yeah, any questions, please leave it for us. Hopefully you can join me next Wednesday I know this was a quick class, but I want to work on little things at a time and we got to start doing hair today So thank you guys for checking us out and please any questions leave them