Pen Tool dragging our Bezier's

I am going round and round over trying to mask something. I set my mask and when I try to use the Bezier handles (yes The Bezier box is checked) It is a crap shoot for IF the bezier's are going to show up or am I going to move the whole mask. I know it takes finesse.
Let me ask this? Do I use my "V" key before trying to select a vertice to pull out my handles or leave it on Pen "G"? I 've tried to use SHIFT to do so... and it is Hit and miss. I tried the "ALT" / V,  or break vertices that goes back n forth between the two. I have used CTRL (win) to try and get them  to respond. Please if someone would tell me the proper steps to adjust a vertice after the mask is set.
Madening I tell you. Thanks
NC

Yeah, AE's masking sucks. Basically you end up clicking in an empty area of your layer to deselect everything and then directly click on the vertex with whatever tool you need. The bad part about it is that you ahve to do it a million times with animated masks in particular, because AE auto-selects the whole mask again. No wisdom beyond that. It's realyl just ugly, finger-breaking dullness...
Mylenium

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