I've been shaving once a week for little more than six months with a straight razor. That means I've had maybe two dozen shaves, so really I'm still a begginner. However, I've learned to give myself a fair shave in two passes, I believe I'm stropping just fine and I've managed to sharpen a razor with my 4/8 Norton. In all this time I've given myself only two nicks on my face that are worth mentioning and given my small two-inch loom strop two small nicks that don't affect the stropping. All the accidents happened on two instances when I was in a hurry (you should never shave with a SR in a hurry, it's dangerous and takes all the pleasure out of it).

I've come to the point in my shaving carreer when I feel like I have something worthwhile to post here - that in my opinion, if you're a begginner everything read here on srp should be taken with a pinch of salt.
One should not shave only half his face on the first try. Instead he should go as far as he feels comfortable, whether it's half a cheek or all the way. I did all of my face on the first try. It wasn't good, but it wouldn't be any better if I waited for the next week.
One should hone his blade as soon as he wants, can't imagine how the skill of shaving can have an impact on the skill of honing. You can't mistake a dull blade for a sharp one, even if it's your first. The dull one doesn't shave, and if it shaves, it is probably good enough.
One should strop as he finds comfortable for him. I tried not twisting my wrist, I tried the x-pattern, I tried standing and sitting - all the must-do's (not even suggestions) and found out that it doesn't work for me. Instead I walk around the room with my loom strop, twisting my wrist, running the blade not perpendicular, but at an kind of angled X-stroke. It works great for me.
I don't do fifty laps on the strop or any other number, I don't even count them. In most cases I've read, twenty should do and you can't do too much. Unless you're doing it wrong, but in that case no specific number will do. So I just strop until I don't feel like stropping anymore.
Obviously a 3-inch strop isn't a necessity either, as some try to make it seem, although I imagine it could make things easier.
I guess there are more examples, but I can't think of any right now.

What I'm trying to say is - straight shaving is not a rocket science, it's fairly easy. Yes, it's harder than with Mach3, but not enormously so.
The experienced shavers should ease a bit on the scaring of the newbies like me. And the newbies should experiment more, try out what works for them, nothing is set in stone about straight razor shaving. I would problably have started using a SR half a year earlier, if not for this forum that made me feel like I should study all the corpus on the subject before I can even lift a razor without killing myself.
On the other hand - I probably wouldn't have ever started using a SR if it wasn't for this forum, for which I really am thankful. The good on this forum greatly outweighs the bad, no doubt about it, but there is always room for improvement.


Hope this helps more people than it offends!