It's all about rotational speed Pete - it has to rotate briskly to generate a kick. The way I used to do it was to hold the flywheel with one hand and the end of the plug lead with the other, put the timing mark half an inch to the left of the stationary mark, and give it a really short but quick wrist-twist, then stop it. I'd keep adjusting the starting point a bit, and try again. With practice I'd only be whipping it a bit more than half an inch each time. Figuring out exactly where it fired in that half inch was guesswork - that difference between 8mm and 8.4mm won't ever matter unless you use a timing light later.
When you test the ignition with a spark plug, does it give a blue spark across the plug gap? If possible, you should also check it with an oversized plug gap, using a junk plug - Briggs & Stratton specify 0.060" gap for testing. If it gives a nice steady string of blue sparks when you pull the starter cord, the ignition is quite good enough to run the engine.
I may be more sensitive than you to getting zapped - the wrist flip was enough to annoy me, there's no way I'd hold a plug lead and let someone else actually pull the starter rope. That would spoil my day in a big way.
