In early mentoring hours, the most common mark on a beginner’s chart is a forest of tiny lows. Every shallow dip earns a circle. The eye is working; the hierarchy is not.
A swing low that matters for structure usually sits where price paused long enough for buyers to leave a clearer footprint — not merely the lowest pixel of the hour. We ask students to zoom out one timeframe, then return, and keep only lows that still look like turns from that distance.
Homework that week uses a single printed chart and a hard rule: three swing lows maximum on the first pass. The constraint feels artificial. It also stops the hand from decorating noise. By the following session, most people can defend why those three marks remain and which wicks were ignored on purpose.