Mostly and Yes.
You get better at chess (and anything in life) by
- Learning to do things at critical moments (books, studying, adding knowledge)
- Learning to "NOT" do things at critical moments (reviewing mistakes)
Reviewing your mistakes and remembering the patterns so that you can make better choices in future games provides HUGE returns.
Though I'm a firm believer that the brain needs "burn time" to really store patterns effectively.
Trying to cement patterns into long-term memory by simply playing 20 games of 5 blitz doesn't work as efficiently as playing 1 long G/100 game of slow chess as the more time you spend focussing on a single position, the more likely the pattern gets "locked" in your brain.
Kind of like drawing patterns on wet cement (which will harden in time if you let it!) vs. drawing them on the beach sand right on the edge of a seashore where the tide will come in.
I always remember my slow game mistakes SO MUCH BETTER (even if played 6 months ago) than my speed-game mistakes played 1 minute ago :)
Do you only improve by figuring out your mistakes? By learning mistakes do you build pattern reconigition? How does this work?