navigation stack - robot rotates in place too much before moving forwards

Hi folks, I eliminated the recovery behaviours from move base, but my my robot rotates too much in place before it moves forward. And when it moves forward it moves for only about 0.5 meters, then starts rotating again, even if there are not obstacles in front of him. Eventually it reaches the goal, but it takes a ridiculous amount of time to travel a very short distance. I was using Carrot and the default algorithm, but I get the same behaviour in both. What parameters are making it rotate like that? Thanks