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I'm nowhere near as hardcore as Spindles, but I do work as a sushi chef to support myself. What I've taken to doing is using my #10,000 grit stone, and sharpening my sushi knives at the end of every shift. The lower grit stones (#1,000), as Spindles said, will 're-align' your blade, whilst the finer grit stones, generally #5,000 and above will act as a 'finishing' stone to provide an extremely smooth finish (on a molecular level, a smooth blade will be sharper..right?)
Though I am not familiar with self defense knives, I'd reccomend some sort of high carbon stainless steel blade. I have a stainless steel and a high carbon stainless steel knife...the high carbon stays sharper than the regular stainless about two times longer.
I generally shy away from Diamond whetstones, as I have heard that they tend to be somewhat coarse, thus eating away the steel of a knife quicker than a traditional water stone. Coarser stones will also shorten the life of a knife too, as the coarser grit eats more of the knife with every scrape. I have many co-workers with deformed sushi knives because of all the sharpening they did on a coarser stone.
Eitherway, I'd reccomend a lower grit sharpening stone to 'shape' your blade. Then a smoother stone to finish the edge.
My knives are usually sharp enough through saran wrap simply by gliding the knife over the film...
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