Thanks to all for your input.

No worries about giving advice to a barber. I would never ask if i did not want it plus I don't have to take it right?

In addition i am inquiring about myself and shaving yourself is quite different. The concept and ideas are the same but the muscle memory and positioning is quite different so I take no offense to what anyone has said. If fact I thank you all for even reading my post.

It seems to me the I just need to work on my stropping. When I shave in the shop or have been shaving myself i have been using a shavette and i never had problems (except for the first shave i ever did but that was addressed here as well) like this. That is what leads me to believe it is my stropping i need to work on. Plus, i was a little aggressive in areas because I desperately wanted to shave with my new razor.

Stropping is totally new to me, I have never done that before. It looks way easier than it is and when you say to use no pressure when stropping mentally that does not compute. It seems almost pointless and that it is not really doing anything.

In fact i now have a few nicks in my strop as well. Maybe I ruined my strop and it is not working. Could this be possible?