Chopping is a very important technique to learn as it will save you a lot of time if you learn how to do it right (well efficiently). For many years I lifted my knife up and down off the cutting board to chop garlic, herbs... but it was a very slow process. Then my sister-in-law, who went to culinary school, taught me a better way. Now I save time and get better results. 

Prep your vegetable, herb or other food item that you want to chop. In the picture above you see that I am chopping garlic which I first removed the skins and the root end that is typically tough and brown.  Place the items that you want to chop on a cutting board.  We use rubber mats under our board to keep it from sliding.  Take your French Kitchen knife (or any knife wih a curved or angled)  tip - to make it easy to rock to chop. 

I have seen 2 techniques to rock to chop, both are very similar. You can either put your fingers on the dull side of the knife, just above the tip of the blade, or on the top in the middle of the dull edge of the blade and use a rocking motion to chop.  This means to rock the knife without lifting the knife from the cutting board. 

Periodically pull the food being chopped to the center of the board, and remove any food stuck to the knife as well.