Two of the old, old, old Woodie vets having a good laugh in chat afterhours today over the worst kept secret in chat -- that nobody does CCI the Pure Woodie way. Okay, I won't say nobody. There are some strays. Maybe NickTrader and then there's a bunch of newbies trying the priceless, only CCI, one timeframe way... until they give up.

In response to whether I've changed my approach (again?)... let me state categorically for the record, "I am not a flip-flopper!" :)

The approach I have been consistently studying and applying since the end of August has been Woodie's CCI. I focus on the 14 CCI and 6 TCCI everyday, trying to spot the Woodie patterns. That's the foundation of everything. It's like learning to hit a baseball from Ted Williams, who must've taught, mentored and advised thousands of would-be Ted Williamses in his lifetime and millions more with his bible, The Science of Hitting. Still, he never produced any Teddy Ballgame clones. Maybe they will in the future from his frozen head, but that's another story. A guy could mimic Ted's stance, listen to his advice for years, read his book a dozen times, study that chart that says you can hit .400 if you narrow your swinging zone to this 6 inch square, and take 5000 hours of practice and real game pitching and you'll never approach Ted Williams. The same goes with Woodie.

So the "process" for me is to take what Woodie offers, take what other great traders in his room offer, and work with that. Dissect what they're doing and see if I can use some of that and create a blend called "my CCI technique." I've chided myself for the constant tinkering. I've felt frustration because I've fallen behind my previously set timetable for going live with my trading and I always feel guilty if I'm not glued to the screen putting in study time around the clock, around the calendar, but I'd like to give myself credit too. I think I'm too hard on myself. Lots of people take a hell of a lot longer time, losing a lot more money, to figure out they need a trading methodology to fit their personality instead of trying to wedge their personality into a ready made system. If it takes me 60 days, 100 days, 250 days or whatever to develop my winning method, and then apply it successfully, then that's what it takes. I'll be truly concerned if my progress totally stops or goes backwards, or if I suddenly scrap the CCI and subscribe to an astrological stock picking newsletter, but I think those initial "I can't figure out these Woodie patterns for the life of me" days are past. For now, though, I am definitely progressing. It's still a work in progress and changes will happen. I will be dipping my toe back into real trades very soon because I do feel "bench rot" creeping in. Maybe one real trade a day. Maybe trade in the morning, paper in the afternoon, or vice versa. I don't know yet. For all the methodical practicing and studying, nothing beats that adrenaline push of being in a real trade, and to a certain degree in all traders, we live for that. Seeing some real game action will be a quick cure to my persistant feelings of not doing enough, and hopefully, with some success or not, it spurs me on and speeds up my learning curve.