Changing straps - making me nervous

So I bought a spring bar tool thinking that changing straps would be like changing outfits, but it took me about 10 minutes to remove the strap from my watch. Whenever I'd catch the edge of the spring bar with the tool and tilt the tool toward the band, it'd slip right off the edge of it. The more I'd do this, the more the watch strap would stretch; at this point, angling the tool didn't seem to the trick. I actually had to apply pressure and move the tool directly to the left to release the spr