Hi, I am new to blender! And every time I try to use the grab tool to move vertices it spikes out like in the photo! How can I switch back to the more “organic” movement of the grab tool, instead of it being forced? And if you could, tell me what I did wrong! I don’t wanna run into this problem again if I start over! Thanks!! 
Hi, you can switch between normal and proportional grab with o , try middle mouse scroll to change grab area.
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/3D_interaction/Transform_Control/Proportional_Edit
Cheers, mib.