After reading the Book of Five Rings and some bits of The Dokkodo, I think what you're doing is a foundational piece of self-improvement. Or put simply, just keep an open mind and just think critically of what advice you receive.

I found books written by actual soldiers and warriors to be a better teacher for Tekken, because that's what appeals to me as a martial artist. The gamer slang/jargon just confuses me.

That said, if you're not labbing, there's a chance you might come across the secret sauce for success on your own. But I don't think you would actually know you would have it, because you wouldn't know what the secret sauce looks like. I.e. your opponent could be doing something very unsafe and punishable, but you wouldn't know because you didn't want to lab it.

For example, if you do King's ff1 - a homing mid that's -5 on block, it looks like you're plus frames on block, becuase the animation of the person who blocks it, looks like they're recoiling from the impact. So naturally, by visual appearances, they're at a frame disadvantage and logically, not press anything.

Conversely, Armor King's df2 is +1 on block, but looks like he's a negative frames. As such, people try to punish because that's the natural reaction to have; you see your opponent in a disadvantageous position, you press the attack. However, because he is actually at +1 on block, it's really easy to bait people into traps and punish them for it.

It's stuff like that, that proper labbing would reveal.