Thread: I've been at this for a week now and I'm hoping you can help me a bit

Thanks for everyone's input. It's been a couple more weeks and I think I've worked out what was giving me trouble. As many suggested, my sticking and jumping was due to a combination of problems. Four actually. Dry lather/skin, bad angle, going ATG too early, and dull razor.
All the things that help give a better shave with a DE turn out to be even more important with the straight. For instance lather or skin that's a bit dry still works with a DE but fails with a straight. But the number one thing that's improved my shaves and eliminated my blade sticking and jumping is my gradually sharper blade. My razor was routinely failing the HHT but I was still using it because no amount of stropping seemed to make it any better. When I forced myself to work at my stropping technique til the blade passed (or just not straight shave that day) that made a really huge difference for me. Stropping is still a struggle for me. I can get a blade to pass HHT on one spot, take it back to the strop to improve the rest of the edge and actually dull what had been the sharp spot. Edge maintenance has definitely turned out to be the hardest part of this for me.
But I feel like I'm progressing even if it is in a two steps forward one step back kind of way. I'm regularly getting DFS with my straight now with little to no irritation. Just a tiny tingle from the alum so I know I'm on the right track. If I can get the stropping down to a routine and then maybe learn to hone I can see me putting away the DE altogether some day.