I was trying to learn Salsa dancing by watching videos on the train. That really didn't work and in fact was counter-productive. Weekly lessons here and there helped but I really didn't start climbing up the pretty-steep Salsa learning curve until I started messing up on the dance floor dancing with random women. You can't simulate experience and the hardest thing was getting started (and continuing). I think you learn by taking on new experiences (if you do the same thing at work every day, you're bored and not learning).

Programming is similar. We make mistakes and brute-force our way through. We start to recognize patterns. That's experience. It's a lot easier however (even though it's all in the head) to do fail in something if it's only you and the compiler/runtime (who cares if it doesn't work right away, you know it will) - when other people are involved, it's a lot harder (fear of what people think)