Journal
Marking a swing that actually counts
Students arrive wanting a formula for the exact number of bars that make a swing. We do not give one. A swing high on our packets is a high that is not taken out for a measured stretch of subsequent bars on that same timeframe, and that is followed by a move large enough to matter for the instrument’s recent range. A two-bar pause inside a drift is left unmarked.
In the first week of Swing Structure Mapping we hang three unmarked daily sheets of the same name. The room almost always over-marks. The correction is not a tighter indicator; it is deleting marks until only the turns that changed the subsequent path remain. If deleting a mark does not change how you would describe the last trend, the mark was decoration.
Bring a pencil, not a pen. The first pass is always too busy.
