As I said in my post, as someone who struggled with this early in his diving career, I found equalizing on land to be an excellent help to me, but it has nothing to do with practice. When I dive today I barely have to equalize, but I have no more skill at the techniques now than I did as a beginner when I found equalization to be close to impossible. Sitting at my computer right now I can pop my ears with no effort at all. If it were back in my beginning days, I would not pop my ears on the surface no matter how I tried.
The difference is in my Eustachian tubes, not my technique. On some days I can do an entire dive without even making the effort to equalize. As I also said earlier, I don't know how it happens, but I know my ears are much more receptive to the equalization process than they were before.
A couple of years ago I had a period of serious illness followed by a severe injury. The result was that I was out of all diving for quite some time. When I returned, I had to work harder on equalization for a while before I returned to normal. I had close to 800 career dives when that happened. I don't think I had lost the skill.