Dry and stiff seaweed sheets

I have attempted to make sushi handrolls and bought Nori seaweed which comes dry and is rather stiff. My question is, how do you get it to be more soft and flexible like when you buy it? It doesn't taste very nice and is rather chewy and difficult to cut.
Regards,

when u make sushi roll, rice come to nori. rice make nori softer. when u cut nori before use, just use scissors.

Might be a quality issue as well. Make sure to buy the good stuff.
In any case, once you put the rice on it, it will soften up & be easier to roll.

The part where you say "chewy and difficult to cut" worries me a bit. Dried Nori should be thin and brittle... sorry to ask but are you sure you have Nori, and not Konbu, which is another kind of seaweed that is sold either salted and soft(for mixing into seafood salad and thigns) or dried (to be used for soup stock)? This would be quite thick and completely stiff if you have the dried one.

Simone, if you're sure you're using nori, perhaps you're using too much of it for each roll. One sheet is too long to wrap around a roll of sushi and I've seen people just wrap the excess around and around, causing multiple layers of nori to be wrapped around a single roll. This is 'chewier' and harder to cut. There should typically be only one layer of seaweed; the restaurants I've noticed cut one sheet (typically about size of a sheet of paper, 8 1/2" x 11")in half, and end up with a single layer.