Professional Counter Strike: Source player “Kluwe” whom currently competes in CAL-Invite on team PK recently sat down to explain the importance of practice and how to learn from your mistakes.

The quote “Practice makes perfect.” is true in all aspects. Practice is a learning method, the act of rehearsing a behavior over and over, or engaging in an activity again and again, for the purpose of improving or mastering it. I believe the reason I was able to achieve the level of CAL-Invite and CEVO-Professional was my practice methods not just some raw talent I had, but developed over time. One of the key things when practicing is making sure that your practice is indeed valuable and a true learning experience not just a waste of time.

You might be repeating something over and over, but this does not indicate you are actually improving your skill. A good way to judge the legitimacy of your practice is to set goals and see if you can achieve those goals. Do not start with overwhelming goals set realistic goals that can be achieved within a short amount of time. Make goals as a team and as players that ultimately lead to bigger goals.

A good example of goals would be getting a certain amount of frags in a match or winning a match as a team, which can ultimately lead to winning playoffs and a league championship or even a LAN event. Another good judge on practicing is if you’re learning something new and the easiest way to learn something new is to watch your mistakes. In order to watch your mistakes you should always record demos whenever you play and figure out how you got out smarted or how the other player beat you.

I myself record demos and watch them to find out my mistakes. This can also be applied to a team aspect to find out what is going wrong during the rounds you lose. Deathmatching is a good way to improve aim, but aim is not everything in Source there are still several aspects to the game. When practicing as a team define roles to certain players and try not to change them, roles play a drastic part in improving teamwork and individual skill. In order to become one of the best practice all the aspects of the game. Teamwork, aim, communication, clutch situations, eco rounds, motivation, strategy, and attitude. These are all very important aspects in order to succeed. Good luck and good fragging.