Ever had a shave start really bad... and then turn out great?

I had retouched some razors using a Dragon's Tongue (wanted to give it a fair tryout.) Normally I finish with diamond paste, but I wanted to see what the DT was like as a finisher.

Today I shaved off 3 days' growth with one of those razors. The first pass WTG was pretty embarassing - lots of hairs remained untouched, and it felt like it was pulling. If I'd taken a spare razor in I'd have probably switched, but I stuck with it.

So, I ended up doing 4 passes in all (WTG/XTG/XTG/ATG). And surprise surprise, the result was good. If anything better than my average shaves, and no skin irritation at all, despite so many passes.

Not quite sure what's happening, should be interesting to see how it performs next time after a bit more stropping.