As the old saying goes, practice makes perfect. Practical skills will only come with practical practice, learning the knowledge from a book can help shape how you practice (it's much easier learning a couple of 'opening chess moves' for exampe, form a book then putting them into practice on a board) but without using that real world practice you can never fully understand them and build your knowledge of them.
I tend to learn most skills by doing, and ultimately failing a lot, but developing at the same time. We will never get everything right the first time, but practice makes perfect!