The trick (if it can be called that) is soft wood, straight grain and make the board flat. Once it is flat sharpen your plane again to an ultra razor edge and start pulling.
I know that to be the case with some of the Japanese planing demos, but in the Brese plane demo, that's maple that Mr. Abraham is planing.
Let me start by stating that I'm not a sharpening guru. I'm just telling you what I do.
There are no tricks to sharpening. There are multiple methods, so pick one, learn it, and use it.
It also depends on the kind of steel you have. Simple steels respond well to regular water stones, and that describes most of my blades and chisels. I have three King brand water stones - 1000, 3000 and 6000. (btw, I wouldn't necessarily recommend the King - there are better, but I've had these for a long time) For plane blades, I use a jig. I once had the Eclipse jig, simple, easy to adjust, so I gave it to my son. I now have the Veritas Mark II jig, which is a bit more complicated (and more expensive), but makes repeat sharpening and micro-bevels much easier. I finish by stropping on a piece of maple or corian with green AlOx compound on it.
For chisels, I hollow grind (except for the small ones 3/8" and smaller) and free-hand them on the stones and finish by stropping.
I've acquired some A2 blades, and they're more difficult to sharpen on the stones I have, so I'm in the process of getting a piece of cast iron and diamond paste. That combination cuts anything, including the very complicated, difficult particle steels that are now being adopted by some woodworkers.
Trust me when I tell you that there are holy wars over sharpening regimens, so I repeat my advice: pick a method and learn it.