for the OP, i suggest you first figure out what time frame you prefer (day, swing, position) b/c that should dictate your strategy not the other way around. if it's swing trading as an example come up with a plan for how you will enter, exit w/ a loss, exit w/ a profit and how much to risk on each trade. do not proceed under any circumstance unless you have each of these things WRITTEN DOWN. trust me on this one. it's fine to be discretionary vs systematic (each has plusses and minuses) but just know what you're looking for for each setup and stick to it. there are so many strategies (mean reversion, trend following, etc) and ways to implement it (futures, options, stocks, etc) and this is just something you have to figure out what you want to do and what fits your personality and risk preference (e.g. if you're starting out trading spy instead of ES).
Mel Raimen passed away? wow. I attended the course about 8 years ago. It's a good method if you understand the concepts. I did very well with it. A lot of people on the forum and some I was in contact with did lousy with it. For the most part, 90% of traders are going to tank regardless of what they use. Hell, you could tell them buy and sell what and where and people will still screw that up. So keep that in mind. Anywho, I was already doing something similar so it wasn't new to me at all. I butted heads with the guy a few times and I guess his passing explains why something I wrote got posted completely out of context as a "testimonial" and never taken down after my initial requests for him to do so. I had a journal here at ET where I documented some trades using my version of the method. Most of the charts probably don't work, though. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=54508