A method and system for equalizing a signal transmitted via a channel of a communications system stores an input signal received via the channel in a main buffer. A training signal portion of the received input signal is stored in a circular buffer as a circulating training signal. A mean square error of the training signal is minimized while estimating the transmitted signal, until the mean square error is less than a predetermine threshold. In this case, the input signal received via the channel is equalized directly to make decisions on symbols of the signal transmitted via the channel. During an initial stage of training, the mean square error is determined directly from the training signal, during subsequent stages of training the circulating training signal is used.