What makes kihon different from other techniques? For one thing, they are considered more foundational - kihon are the building blocks of other techniques.
But also, kihon are usually stripped of their practical fight context and placed into an artificial context or structure to make them easier to do many repetitions more easily. For instance, uchikomi in judo are set up so that you can efficiently do many, many reps of them, but the techniques in shiai and randori often do not happen just like uchikomi.
One of my favorite practices is taking kihon into pieces and doing them in steps, or "by the numbers." Since the structure of kihon is somewhat arbitrary, you can conceivably break the same action into different numbers of steps.
I like to do kihon with three steps for a while, then do the same kihon with four steps, then with five steps and so on, breaking each action into more microscopic parts for examination.
For instance, in Jo you can do kihon #1 - honteuchi - in 3 steps...
1-draw
2-raise
3-drop
Or you can do 4 steps...
1-draw
2-raise
3-drop
4-point at eyes
Or 5 steps...
1-draw
2-compress Jo
3-raise
4-drop
5-point at eyes
Each time you divide a step into two is an opportunity to explore the kihon in greater detail - and there is no end to the potential for explorations with this method.
