Very hard cataracts continue to be a challenge to phacoemulsification due to the difficulty in breaking the nucleous and also in separating the broken nucleus from the adjacent epinucleus. The present technique is the presentation of a surgical maneuver which uses the Nagahara chopper and the phaco tip to divide the nucleus (including the epinucleus) as a whole and then emulsity it using little time and not very much phaco power.