This is (not so) horrible 🙂

nobody forced you to buy the course and sit through it

Al is pretty clear this is only for serious traders.  It takes dedication and concentration to be able to learn any skill that will yield a good income.  

Hi Al,

As you have only been studying course for less than 2 weeks you really have a long way to go. "There are no shortcuts to any place worth going" as is quoted on one of the How to Trade Manual articles. Or perhaps "Have patience. All things are difficult before they become easy".

If the course does not meet your needs feel free to request a refund. The course will not suit everyone, given our varied human learning styles, and even the 30-day trial period is not long enough for many to really get deep enough into Al's material and appreciate its value.

Can I also respectfully ask you to tone down your critical voice here. No point trying to blame Al's teaching style, or anyone else, for your own perceived problems. We are all responsible for our own path in life. Learning to trade is hard work, requiring much repetition and practice. There is no Holy Grail out there, although many try to sell you that - but not Al Brooks.

So again, if you feel Al's course does not work for you just ask for a refund and get on with finding something that does. Sincerely wishing you good luck finding something. Maybe like many others you will return to Al's course after spending many months and thousands of dollars elsewhere (ref testimonials). 😎 

Posted by: @al-smolkin

This entire video series is like sitting through the most boring lecture that you absolutely must attend, because there might be a bit of two that actually make sense. 

 

How the hell did anyone think that an hour of examples will make up a good guide? 

 

Good Grief... 

If someone broke into your home, made you pay for the course and view it for hours on end to find "The bit of two that actually make sense", that is horrible and the Police should be involved.  

Hope you are okay and that the trauma associated with this saga does not prevent you from returning to BTC in the future and learning from it.

Good luck!  

Richard, my problem isn't the material, but, rather, the delivery. 

I'm fine with the monotonous drone.

But, the material itself is hidden among hours of meandering and useless observations, such as:  "sellers might buy it, and buyers might buy it".

What's the point of having 90+ hours of videos if the actual material with ACTUAL examples takes less than tenth of that time? 

To frustrate the student, and turn him off? 

This is, by far, some of the worst course structure I've seen in ages. 

Mr Smolkin   

I understand and shared your frustration when I first started.  But like many people here I tried a few people before I found Al.  [Way more expensive for less education]

I then realized that I did not find anywhere else to go, no better option. 

I also realized that it was a ME problem.  I had to learn how to learn from Al Brooks.

That took me about 6 months.  You cannot believe the trading jewels that I have learned since then. I seek out his guidance daily. 4 times through the material & still learning & putting the puzzle together.  You can give up sir,  but I hope you give it one more shot, with the mindset on building up your knowledge bit by bit.  Best Wishes

Its been close to a decade since I last went through the trading course.  So, here is a hint from "a long a time ago"  . . .in one of the menus there is a speed select . . .1.5X worked great!   (Don't know if the speed is still available)

Needless to say, Al's trading philosophy and training material is phenomenally great and enduring.  It stands the test of time year after year. I am deeply indebted to Al and BTC

Perhaps fragmenting the course in bite size pieces could be an improvement for people having problems with the study. Regardless, this approach might even work best for most students.

I studied Wedges and (Final) Flag sections first (as they are related) till I got that down in detail, practiced, studied and traded them till I found myself trading consistently profitable and comfortable enough, and went on to the next section/subject and so on.

An advantage of this approach I found, that it became gradually easier to work myself through the course material and rather quickly found myself improving week by week.

I'm sure Al wished he had a course available like this when he started out.

Just my two pennies, others might think differently.

My degree in Computer Science was easier than learning to trade.  The 100 hours of course content is just the beginning.

Couple of months ago I did the course for the fourth time.  It took about 8 hours per day over 2 weeks. I still learned a new things.  Experience of the markets brings a fresh perspective to the course content. 

This isn't a course that gives you a few setups that you sit around waiting days to line up. It is a course that will teach you to make money in every twist and turn of the markets... in sideways markets, trending markets, swings, scalps.  Pretty much every bar on the chart is a potential trade.  The course is the most detailed and intricate account of price action analysis ever produced.

So yeah its heavy going.  And its not fun sitting though all 100 hours for the fourth time. I wish I could download all the knowledge into my brain, but there's no shortcuts. 

You think it was fun for Al and Richard to produce all the charts and PowerPoints, and to record and edit the videos?  It was a ton of work for them to produce this.  It took years releasing one or two videos a week. I'm sure Al and Richard would have loved if it was shorter and got it finished faster.

You've embarked on the most difficult endeavour you will ever face.  And you've chosen the hardest career in the world.  Every day as a trader you're competing against the smartest people in the world: either you take their money or they will take yours.  Its a zero-sum game.

So hunker down, get it done and stop whining. Or go back to your day job.  This is not for lazy people.

Hi  Al Smolkin,

 When you wrote "But, the material itself is hidden among hours of meandering and useless observations, such as:  "sellers might buy it, and buyers might buy it". What's the point of having 90+ hours of videos if the actual material with ACTUAL examples takes less than tenth of that time?"

This is true only because you are at the beginning of the course. When I started this course a few months ago I had similar feelings but as I progressed through the course and reviewed earlier videos I gained a deeper understanding of what Al was really saying. One can only really understand this course by going through the course taking serious notes and trying to gain at least a basic understanding of what Al is saying. Then when you go through the course a second time your eyes are open and you understand what Al is really saying on a much deeper level.  

I also agree with Alexander about fragmenting the course.  At least that is easier on my brain, mileage varies.  Wedge is a good one to start with.  Make sure to start with the Fundamentals and then move to How to Trade.   Not to skip Fundamentals.

I would then look for those setups on historical charts to assure myself they work.

Also to maintain focus, I take screenshots, annotate (using Lightshot) and save in a Word doc (for my own use, not to be shared :), this way I keep myself engaged.

Posted by: @sandor

Perhaps fragmenting the course in bite size pieces could be an improvement for people having problems with the study. Regardless, this approach might even work best for most students.

I studied Wedges and (Final) Flag sections first (as they are related) till I got that down in detail, practiced, studied and traded them till I found myself trading consistently profitable and comfortable enough, and went on to the next section/subject and so on.

An advantage of this approach I found, that it became gradually easier to work myself through the course material and rather quickly found myself improving week by week.

I'm sure Al wished he had a course available like this when he started out.

Just my two pennies, others might think differently.

Thank you for this helpful suggestion. I also think this is one of the best ways to learn many difficult good things in this world.

Hi  Al Smolkin,

I started learning by reading books written by AL. When you re-read a chapter once again you will understand something more.

Thereafter, I bought "Brooks trading course" and start studying. I found that the concept which I read in books can be illustrated in the video course. 

However, I think "The Brooks Encyclopedia of Chart Patterns" and "Brooks Trading Course Daily Setups" are very important. There are many patterns and cases which you have to familiar with if you don't want to miss any good setup.

For a good setup, the probability of success is always about 60% and that's why "sellers might buy it, and buyers might buy it".

Perhaps fragmenting the course in bite size pieces could be an improvement for people having problems with the study. Regardless, this approach might even work best for most students.

Hi Alexander and all,

If you analyze the course breakdown you should see it is already 'fragmented' quite a lot! 😊

Looking at the main Brooks Trading Course we have 10 sections, 52 topics, and 98 hours of video. Each topic was broken down into several videos, each with multiple chapters, with the aim to get down to 15-20 minutes max per video. Not easily done of course, so many videos much longer.

Overall we managed to finish up with 193 videos which is an average of about 30 minutes. If we had finished up with all videos at 15 minutes that would have given us 390+ videos!!

So if 15 minutes is a "bite size piece", then we would have close to 400 videos in total which is not easy to manage. Already a mammoth task to create and maintain separate course pages for each video (now in 3 languages = 1,200 website pages just for main course alone).

We will be moving later this year to a new course management system and need to review how best to present each videos content. Hopefully in future we can link chapters in each video to the player, as done by YouTube, which can then approach the "bite sized" pieces need better.

With new course system, and to help traders better study course, we are also looking into supplying quizzes. Maybe we could add questions and answers to each video section here somehow. Or open up another forum to invite ideas and Q&A.

This topic/thread is in the wrong place. Original message has nothing much to do with Swing Trading topic. Maybe best to move it too? 😎