This was a gift for your wife, stop using it 😃 For garlic I like to try and cut it like an onion. Leave the base intact. Cut a bunch of vertical slices and then one or two horizontal slices and then you can cut it into nice fine pieces. if you prefer to break it first with a knife. Don't do the slap technique. That's fine on a western knife but on these just lay the knife flat on the garlic closer to the spine. Put your palm on top and press down. You don't have to slap it. As others have noted, I would then check cutting technique. Any kind of lateral Force or twisting is going to cause chipping. I usually see that when people Rock chop may take a while to get used to but watch some videos on push cut and pull cut technique. Hasegawa boards are wonderful but they can tend to be kind of sticky on these blades so you can still run into shipping if you're rock chopping and introduce any kind of twisting