Pat the Cat or Pet the Cat? I like that, good metaphor.
Tim, summed it up Dave. Another idea that might help is to think of you chisel like a skew chisel. Most of the time you don't want your chisel edge to be perfectly parallel to the grain. In this case the fibers are rolled instead of cut. For example if you are cleaning a tenon face, If you start near the shoulder and change the angle so your only the corner of your chisel hits the grain first instead of the edge hitting the fiber all at once, then work away from the shoulder, you might have some better results. You can feel it when it is right, there will be constant little or no resistance. Your tool will move across the face nicely.
The drawknife can be a big teaching tool with your situation. If you take a square timber and put an organic chamfer on an arris (corner) it will teach you quickly to pay attention to grain. You simply can't pull in one direction all the way down the timber. Most of the time you will have to pull one direction, then the other, then back the other way, etc. The grain movement will not allow any other way, if you want it to be consistent.
