To Trend or Not To Trend

As I wrote in an earlier post, I am looking for ways to identify "Trend Days" and take advantage of the direction to make a single trade with the trend and capture significant price action. The issue here is, that in the current market, with it's high degree of volatility, capturing these trend day's involves significant downside risk. Additionally, at this stage in my development as a trader, I feel more comfortable with shorter timeframes, albeit with more modest profits.
Taking a look at my trading today; I started very poorly, with -500 after 3 trades; this was mainly attributable to trying to follow the big trend, and getting chopped up in the early action. Once I went back to scalping, I was able to recoup the losses of the day; winding up a modest -50 after commisions were factored in.