Roger, it takes time and not just the abscent minded passing of blade across the belt, you need to slow down and notice what you're doing
im new to this but i'm getting better, my *personal* opinion, take from it what you want and leave what you want is i dont want to depend on jigs and tools and such, they can help you at first but just as dont depending on them. i started free hand on platen and im glad i did. but on the other hand if i tried riding a bicycle with no training wheels i would've ended up with broken bones and hating it so in my opinion use methods like using a marker or dykem to see where you're actually grinding, scribe the edge, mark several heights for the bevel to keep yourself in check and see where you go wrong (as mentioned you can start with the non dominant hand first), practice with the grinder turn off, try smaller blades first, also and this may seem simplistic but do you see where you grind? i mean do you stand close to grinder looking down on work or do you stand bit further? do you grind edge up or down, if you can do switches between hands after few passes (so the memory is still in your mind but only hands are switched), and if you actually use a jig dont be entirely dependant on it (if you can)
hope this helps