Hoorah! Since getting my straight for christmas, I've just now finished my 5th shave with it (my beard grows fairly slowly). Today has been the first day I've not had to (I still reasonably could though, mind you) touch up with my old cartridge afterwards. Obviously I'm far from proficient still, though, and so I thought I'd summarise my experience so far and ask a few questions afterwards too.

It was only after my fourth shave that my friend (also new to the art) pointed out that I was using the wrong hand for each side of the face, which made things slightly easier today, although not by much. For now I've been sticking with a single WTG pass with a relather and going over for difficult bits, which for me is mainly the jawline. I also suspected for the last few that I'd been forming the lather incorrectly, which was confirmed this morning when I saw this: Making basic soap lather - Straight Razor Place Wiki here, since I have the same bowl and soap setup, but have been trying to create the lather in the soap bowl without a second. It's difficult to do that without it going everywhere, and so today's was much easier in that regard. Better yet, I didn't really know what lather is supposed to be like before, but now I do know I was able to create a much better (thought probably still quite imperfect) lather.

As for stropping, I'm stropping directly before each shave at the minute, although I'm not that confident with it yet. I pull the strop taught with my left hand and find it much harder to do the pass coming from the wall to my hand (it doesn't seem to make the same delightful rasping noise as much.) I will of course look for some videos on proper stropping technique later, but does anybody have any favourites that would be suitable in particular?

Most of my cuts have been silly and avoidable, and I think a lapse in concentration is to blame in 90% of them, but I haven't seriously cut myself to bits yet. Thankfully.

I haven't got a hone yet but I've got a paddle strop as part of the starter kit, so I'll be good for a while hopefully, but are there any telltale signs that a blade needs honing to refresh the edge I should look out for? I think I'll probably go gung-ho and get my own hone straight away when I need it, as I'm going to have to learn eventually.

I'm really enjoying it so far and can't wait to get better. I've been consistently clean-shaven for the first time in a long while now, thanks to the fact that I now actually look forward to shaving. I think I had some more things I wanted to ask but I can't think of them at the moment, so I'm calling it a day with this post. Thanks for all the information and support here!