No doubt you're spending a lot of money on your training, so I suggest you ask your instructor to demonstrate, and assist you on the controls. That's what you are paying him for. After 20 hours you should be well and truly past first solo stage.
If you need to think about what you're doing at this phase of flight you're too far behind the aircraft to be able to pull it off smoothly. I've never flown Bell 47, however if it's squirrelly in the hover like a B412 the technique I use, once in the hover is, when you start to lower the collective keep it going down. Eventually it will land.