Greg,
whatever "system" you use - will be biased in some way - and then you are creating expectations, trust, information into this system. What you need to be keenly aware is that this is a simple and flat view of the complex that is the market - i.e reality of this interlinked complex interactions from investors, news and so on. Also, there is no way to perfectly model this, represent it in a coherent way which always matches the "mechanics" of the market situation. Some times a specific event unfolding will be the main market focus - but there will always be innumerous factors present.
Your system consists of studying, observing, reflection and simulated trading - that is how you are trying to "get in sync" with the markets. You create "content", rationalization, "trust" into your system by applying technical analysis - which is just some mathematical biased viewpoint when it comes down to an essence.
I scalp markets, and my "sync" or "feel" for the markets are based on observing the "action" and anticipating moves or "bias" in the market building up -- this is a projection of my perception into what some market participants are looking at. I have only the price action as an input, as well as patterns of the near history - and the news flow, info. Together this gives a very sketchy outline of what the total information about the market is. I mostly do not know anything about positions of other participants that influence markets. However, there are people and systems with much more information than me - and these react to some positions and actions - sometimes running stops etc. I can observe a limited set of actions (price, time, buy, sell, movement rate, rise, fall) and identify some of these larger patterns emerging.
When I say that you should spend more time actually trading - simulated or not - it is because I think this also helps develop this "feel for the markets" - which is more acute for a scalper than for a technical trader. By this I mean that a scalper takes a decision in a very short time, while a technical trader will have a setup based on "mathematical levels/limits" - developed over time by looking at historical data, and projecting forwards to see if it matches. So - the "investment in strategy" is much greater for a technical trader, while it is easier and faster to adapt as a scalper - as long as you are not stubborn or a slow learner. But no matter what kind of strategy you take - you need some degree of "feel for the market" - because you will not be studying for hours "after the fact" when you are going to enter the market. When entering the market - this is a decision which happens on a fairly short timeframe - otherwise you would be engaging in a longer term strategic trading - where entry levels are not that important since the expected move is much greater.
I started trading the same way I guess a lot of people do; I understood something about the business of a company, and knew the times were good for this kind of business - so I invested some. Then later I got more into trading by being handed stocks, and I had also developed some models for energy markets - so I knew a fair amount about prediction analysis, as well as having a mathematical and computing background. Later I got into futures and indices, then other derivatives.
Through the years, I have seen a lot of "technical trading" and I have tried to see if I could make it work for me - but ultimately I found it all to be useless distractions for me personally, maybe because I don't stop at superficial signalling - but always try and go beyond the mere signal and actually understand the connections, implications to real markets. First it was the basic indicators, then stuff from Mark Jurik etc. Finally, I got into more "meta analysis" in line with my background in prediction modelling and artificial intelligence - to map indicators for "tape reading". Now I find technical analysis helpful for insight into what others think, but I keep it as such and have a deep distrust of "technical indicators" since I know they are unreliable and often fail, since they are mathematical biased viewpoints, often seeded by subjective opinions.
So - I realize my own "system" is biased, as well as anyone else's - but I try to get an approximation of anticipated market action or an outline to present me some indications, and sometimes it is strong while often it is a weak indication. I focus more on the current situation than past history - and this is a bias from my style of trading - scalping. I strongly need to "be in sync" with markets - while you have more "lag" with technical trading. However, you still need to develop a certain level of "sync" with markets as well - therefore it is useful to develop this skill, by spending more time looking at current market conditions - evaluating setups matching your trading style as you will be doing in the future when trading for real.
Otherwise - you are developing other skills - which are secondary to those you will be depending on when actually trading. In essence - stay within the timeframe of decision making that you will be doing when actually trading. If you make decisions solely on historical data - without concern for "slight movements" - then develop this "system", but make sure you always follow through - so that you are not wasting your time on skills you will not be using for actually trading. At least identify them as such, if they are not part of your trading routine.
And as user oktiri mentioned, if you have a -10% account drawdown on a few trades - then take a good hard look at your risk management and money management.
