Skipping Custom Tags

If I have a custom tag and I do:

  <xsl:apply-templates select="mytag"/>

the tag <mytag> ends up in the output. Frequently this is not what I
want. Rather I want to skip that tag and apply-templates on everthing
enclosed *within* that tag. For that, adding /* appears to work:

  <xsl:apply-templates select="mytag/*"/>

Is this the proper expression or should it be "@*|node()" or what?

Mike