In a polarization-multiplexing optical communications system, a method and system for coherent reception of polarization-multiplexed optical communications. Training and data sequences are recovered from a plurality of orthogonally polarized signals, such that training and data sequences may be used on a single channel without loss of spectral efficiency. This is accomplished by estimating a channel response for each orthogonally polarized signal based on the mean of the signal and distinguishing between a data sequence and a training sequence in each orthogonally polarized signal. Such distinguishing is accomplished according to an iterative linear minimum mean-square equalization based on the respective channel response estimate.