Hi Mrbluelegs,
I have been using CCI since 2005, it that time Woodie was using 3 min bars. CCI is the only price indicator that I use. The difficulty that I had and most have is being shaken out of trades. Many things can happen during 3 min, and even if you have long ZLR with green sidewinder and blue chop zone, you can still easily be shaken out of a trade, and the trade then could still go into original direction.
My solution was to switch from time fractals to constant volume bars. This also helped tremendously in identifying chop periods since if nothing is happening no volume bars are being produced where time bars are produced regardless.
I also use the price action in combination with CCI. I find it very helpful.
CCI works because it is just a visual interpretation of price action itself. Just turn you candles into line and compare it to CCI. No magic there as you of course know. You can trade without CCI just by looking at price action itself, but why making price interpretation harder then it needs to be.
Also, definitely stay out of message boards and rooms while trading, they will be a big distraction and will cause you to loose concentration.
Regards.
redduke