In the beginning, you might find that your hands feel stiff, separated, or strained when you massage. You might look good, but it doesn’t feel right. You are probably trying to do too much and control your movements too much, instead of just letting your hands react to what they are feeling. The answer to this is not to learn more strokes, but to pay more attention to what you’re doing in each stroke.
Slow down. Pick one stroke and just do that stroke, say a long stroke on the back or arm, but do it at half speed. Notice how your hands feel when you make contact, and how the pressure travels into your palms as you press into the body. If your fingers are clenched or your wrist is locked, stop and let that go, then continue. How relaxed you are affects the kind of touch you give.
One of the main errors here is using too much pressure and keeping your hands tight. This decreases the sensitivity of your hands and makes your strokes feel clumsy and forced. Instead, use less pressure and focus on a smooth stroke. Let the pressure come from your body weight rather than trying to force it with your hands. As the pressure builds in a more gradual way, the stroke becomes more controlled and less tiring.
When you find yourself feeling stiff, go back to repeating one stroke instead of going through a lot of different strokes. Doing one stroke over and over again for several minutes allows your hands to adjust and settle into a stroke. You may find that after a few minutes, your grip loosens and the stroke starts to feel smoother without you even trying. This is when you actually start to get better.
You can practice this in just a few minutes a day. Take a minute or two to establish a light touch, then do some slow even strokes focusing on releasing your fingers and wrists. Then lighten up again and let your hands drift over the surface of the skin. This alternating of light and deeper, and back to light again, helps your body learn about control without tension.
If you are not sure what to do at any given moment, pay attention to how the body underneath your hands is responding. If the muscles are resisting, or feel guarded, lighten up and slow down. If the tissue is starting to melt, maintain the same speed and depth. This will tell you more about what to do next than trying to remember a bunch of strokes. With time, the stiffness will go away and your hands will learn to stroke with less effort. What feels mechanical will start to feel fluid, and your stroke will begin to adapt on its own. The trick is not to try and control your stroke better, but to just allow this process to happen with a little practice.