Yeah, I think the terminology is what's throwing you off Steve. I think you understand it better than you think you do. One thing you might have misunderstood is that it looks like you're lifting the spine but you're not. It's just the motion, at least if you're watching Glen's video. This is the hard part when you're new to it. If you saw some joker tell you to lift the spine that guy's an idiot but how would you know if you're new to it? Glen gives a good explanation there if that makes sense to you. He's talking about the ripple of the water on the stone and watching the wake of it like behind a boat but it will be in front of the edge. That's a good way of thinking of it. Thanks Glen. What the ripple does is show you that the edge is in contact with the stone. If it's not the water will go underneath the edge where it lifts. although if your stroke is right and your spine is not warped it doesn't actually lift it's just raised off the stone because the spine or edge that is in contact with the stone is not in line with the part that is not. Some razors have a warp or maybe the grind wasn't exactly straight to begin with. For those you have to compensate and Glen shows this in one of his videos. I personally have always thought of it in terms of keeping the edge at any point on the blade at a 90° to the stone as you go through a stroke No matter whether it is a straight or smiling edge. But then maybe that's not right either. As you can see in one of Glen's videos He goes at a 45°. The whole point is making sure that the entire edge makes contact with the stone. That's why the swoop in the rolling x, to follow the curve.
I think I'm saying that right. Somebody please correct me if I'm not. I think the others will agree with me on this. You've done well this early to be able to hone successfully and good on you for that but if you run into a blade that has a warp or probably even a frown that's something you want to leave for now or send out for repair because that's much more of an advanced honing technique. Learn honing a decent razor first and then try learning repair on a junker that you literally care nothing about.