My stropping improved when I started pretending the straight razor was a knife. I have some Bark River knives that have to be stropped to be sharpen. Of course I had to modify my technique because of blade shape, angle and weight. Anyway, I bend my wrist a certain way when I sharpen knives. When I use that wrist bend while stropping my straights I think I get better results. I also use the same pressure as I would a knife but of course a straight weighs a lot less. Could be just bad technique but it works for me