TA goes back 300 years. If you want to define it in some other way, that is your prerogative. But that doesn't make it true, any more than the NWO is true.
I see no point in continuing a closed loop. Sorry, cornix.
Again, I focus on the behavioral aspect of TA. I don't use indicators nor do I use candles.
As for predictive ability, again, it's a simple matter of knowing how to draw a trend channel. This has been common knowledge for a hundred years.
On Observation
A chart is a visual representation of transactions. The results of these transactions are depicted by either a line which will look like a map of the Pacific Coast Highway, or by a bar which represents the opening price (the little notch on the left side of the bar), the low for...
Actually I've been doing it for the past two years. one year here. I was wrong in November when I forecast a return to the LL of the trend channel. Instead we bounced off the median and drove back to the UL, where we've hovered ever since until last week.
Is there some special significance to "20"?
Most of it has to do with age. Remember that we are now at the 20-year mark with regard to relatively common use of the internet. So those who are 30 or younger don't know anything else. Those who are 50 or younger don't remember a time before indicators. To them, TA is indicators. But then few...
Well, the indicator category is broad, just as the pattern category is broad, but they are nonetheless just categories that branch off from the study of price behavior.
Remember that traders were trading off price behavior long before indicators.
Actually, it's not so broad. It began with the study of price behavior then diverted into patterns and indicators. But patterns and indicators are both intended to "work" due to changes in price behavior.