I just wanted to post an update, I spent the last several days working on stropping. I tried shaving again last night and it went much better than last time. I think a big part of it was my stropping technique. I'm pretty sure the stropping i was doing before didn't really do anything.
Now if i can only figure out how to get a good lather. It seems like the soap is really hard and not enough of it transfers to the brush.