Most new futures traders think market structure means memorizing patterns — head and shoulders, double tops, whatever. That's not it.

Market structure is really just answering one question at every moment: is price making higher highs and higher lows (uptrend), lower highs and lower lows (downtrend), or neither (range)? That's it. Everything else — entries, stops, targets — comes AFTER you answer that question correctly.

The mistake I see constantly: people try to find a "setup" before they've even identified which of those three states the market is in. You end up longing into a downtrend because the candle "looked bullish," and wonder why it didn't work.

Before you take a single trade, zoom out and just label the last 10-15 swings on the chart as HH/HL or LH/LL. If you can't do that in under 30 seconds, you're not ready to enter yet — you're guessing.

I teach this stuff daily inside Futures Flow if anyone wants to go deeper on execution once structure clicks.