Becky, the most natural thing to do with your hand is to sign your name. To help get a feel for the spirals, sign your name in a scrap of wood. Speed up your motor and slow your feed. You will be able to sign your name easier than trying to follow some lines on a pattern. It's a mental thing. I think what throws most people off is when you stop or hesitate with a flat blade, we generally pull the piece back a little to stop the cut. The blade just goes up and down. When you stop or hesitate with a spiral - we tend to pull back out of habbit and we are still cutting. I highly recommend the dead man switch. When you need to hesitate, let off the switch.
When I haven't cut with a spiral in a while, I usually start off by cutting my name. It gets my hand and my brain in the right frame of mind to do the job.
