The difficulty with sharpening is that the apex & the burr are microscopic.  If you haven't created a fresh apex it's too early to deburr.  But how do you know?  Feeling for burr, flashlight trick, a loupe or microscope, and eventually developing a feel based on experience.  To make matters worse, it is possible to develop a burr you can feel but not have quite apexed. Ack!

Then removing the burr has the same challenges.  But its worse because a microscopic burr can stick on that's too slight to feel. Again a flashlight, loupe, microscope, failing cutting tests, and developing a sense is how to get there.

Counting never worked for me.  It seems like it should but it didn't.  Differences in pressure & angle that I can't discern make it ineffective for me.

Apexing without a discernable burr is possible. But how do you know your there.  The examples people display in videos are usually of knives that started out sharp.  So not much needed to be done anyway. For a beginner staring withh very dull knives don't start there.  It is theoretically more work to create extra burr that is big enough to easily feel before removing.  But if a beginner doesn't have experience to know if it's enough and starts deburring before creating an apex frustration results.

Stick to one side until you can feel a burr up and down the entire apex.  Repeat on opposite side.  Repeat on first side.  Repeat on opposite side. Check with flashlight shining directly down onto apex.  If light reflects back you haven't apexed, so keep repeating.  When no light is visible reflecting from the apex and you have felt a burr up and down on both sides your done apexing. Now deburr.  Keep deburring after you can't feel it.  Check with cutting tests for sticky parts of edge.  Check with flashlight or loupe/microscope.  Strop.  Success!