cut strokes vs colour strokes - finer points of polishing

[rotorman]

I've read about cut strokes and colour strokes on a few websites and I have a things I'm not quite clear about.

CUT STROKE
From what I gather a cut stroke involves going against the motion of the wheel. Say you have a bench grinder with buffing wheel travelling away from you - you would pull the part towards you, using the underneath part of the wheel for safety reasons (so the part doesn't get flung out of your hands).

Have I got this right?

COLOUR STROKE
OK - so a colour stroke is the opposite of a cut stroke? ie you move the part against the wheel in the direction of travel - eg bench grinder with buffing wheel travelling away from you - you push the part away from you.

Is this correct?

APPLICATION OF THE STROKES
does each stage require both cut and colour strokes?
if so, do you follow each cut with a colour stroke? or do you all your cutting, then when you are happy, do some colour strokes?
do all compounds need both strokes? eg do you cut with white compound or are you meant to only colour?

Or is all this ****, and you should just move the part left to right against the wheel?

the only thing i run in the cut is a sisal after that i use the bottom on the wheel and go side to side

here is how i do it ..
step 1. cut sisal/black
step 2. color sprial /black
step 3. color sprial/green
step 4. color loose/red
and you get this :

depending on the part i got with sisal/black then sprial green then loose red...
but now that i stole you topic .. no you do not need to do both for each compound .. some times you end up with a lot of scratches if you do it with them all ... but every one got there onw way of doing it