cuts

I usually find if i cut myself it's when i am tentative, if i start well things seem to go much better, if i lose confidence, then i tend to cut myself. Is this anyone elses experience?

You might be on to something there, at least when you are beginning. There is a balance you have to find too because as you gain confidence and you become less tentative you don't want to get over confident either. That will bite you too.

Bob

This is a good theory to put out for beginners like me. I can't wait til my razor comes in, and I can start making my own lather and do a classical shave.

In general when you use a straight you need to be focused and attentive to the shave. if you are not then bad things are bound to happen.

It's like landing a plane. Even though the instruments say everything is fine if you don't feel right you go around and try again. If you start the shave, even though you did perfect prep and your razor is ready to go and with the first few strokes things don't seem right you stop and either figure what's wrong or switch to plan B and use a DE or similar.

You can certainly cut yourself being either too hesitant or over-confident.

I found when I was getting used to straight shaving, that if I decided where the stroke was going to start and where it was going to go, and then carried out that 'plan', then it usually worked OK. I cut myself when I thought, mid-stroke, 'maybe I can slide it round and get this bit too', or decided at the last moment to change direction, or something like that.

My brain seems to need a moment to pass the plan from the conscious mind to the muscle control bit, and if I try to pass a change of plan while carrying out a muscle procedure, it confuses the muscle control and it goes wrong. And a cut happens.

This is similar to what happened when I did juggling: if I planned ahead - throw, throw, trick A, throw, throw, trick B..., it all worked (mostly). If I decided on the spur of the moment to add an extra trick, even in the middle of a plain throw, throw, throw sequence, it confused my muscle control part and I'd drop the balls.

Your mind might vary. :)

Edited to add: The only time it's good to change my plan is if the razor is starting to bite in - I'm always prepared to lift the razor away from my face if that happens.

This post makes me laugh :p I cut myself when I stop paying attention. Just the other day I had the blade sitting on my lower lip at a slight angle, and well the doorbell rang. SLICE. Red all over the place and a cut the width of my razor. So yeah haha I cut myself when I'm not paying attention. The dang alum block wasn't even wide enough to be of much help what with blood dripping everywhere.

I usually suffer a little nick when I go for that one more pass. I'm done shaving but look at the bowl and just hate to waste that last bit of lather. So on to another pass and (:-(....