Q: Reading the cool tai chi magazines is fun, but the primary way to improve your tai chi is to practice. Anecdotes about one tai chi master, the famous Chen Fake, say he practiced his styles form 30 plus times a day. While you certainly don't need to go to this extreme, practicing once a day is preferable. Twice a week is about the minimum amount of practice in order to learn most effectively, and feel a tangible benefit. When practicing, focus on what you remember. Don't beat yourself up about not remembering, but rather improve what you can work on. Even if you only remember one posture, standing and holding that posture is good for you. Develop a routine so that it is both easy to remember and you find it a pleasant association between practicing tai chi and how you feel about your day in general. What you get from your Tai Chi practice is largely determined by how, and how much your are practicing. To get the most from your training consistency is needed. Set aside some time for yourself every day, fifteen minutes will do. Then, every day, take that time to care for your body and clear your mind with your practice. The reward will be well worth it. You can practice indoors or outdoors, with friends, or solo. Whatever fits in best for you, tai chi will work with you. You need at least three months of practicing tai chi before you will notice the benefits. At this point, they should be very evident and ongoing but don't give up give yourself at least this minimum period to see the benefits. And once you reach this mark, continue for longer and bigger benefits, and for greatly increased skill. During the tai session, you are expected to put aside distractions and focus. The deep breathing aspect will help, as will relaxing: Relax. Tensing your body is the best way to prevent getting any benefit from tai chi. However, relax does not mean turn into a wet noodle. Retain proper posture without excess tension. Classic tai chi literature often describes this as standing "as if one were suspended on a string on the top of the head". Breathe. Part of the secret of tai chi's health benefits comes from deep, abdominal breathing. The majority of styles teach "abdominal breathing", in which one breathes in, expanding the abdominal area (not the chest) and exhales by contracting the abs. All inhalation is done through the nose; exhalation through the mouth and the tongue should touch the roof of the mouth, stimulating salivary function. Live in the moment. Develop the tai chi mental discipline to live in the moment rather than focusing on anxieties. Once you are more proficient at tai chi, move it into your daily life to reduce stress. Practice the concepts of tai chi in highly stressful situations, such as traffic jams, or a high-intensity work meeting, to lessen the tension and restore inner calm and balance. As a form of meditation, tai chi is able to help you learn to understand yourself better and thereby deal with others more effectively. Thus, when stressful situations arise, tai chi learning will help you to be assertive and respectful of others, as well as staying in the present and dealing with the situation before you with calmness. Tai chi helps you learn to merge the opposing forces of yin and yang, self and the world to achieve a natural balance for physical and spiritual well-being. This balance is represented by the tai chi symbol. Cross-training in other forms and styles, after you've achieved a basic level of mastery in your first form, is often very helpful at improving your general tai chi knowledge. The iconic practice of tai chi are the "hand" forms; the slow movements performed in a group or solo. But tai chi includes a vast array of forms which can improve your health and self-defense abilities. Most teachers only go on to such forms after a demonstrable proficiency in the basic hand form of the style. Learn about weapons forms. Almost all styles, including those which disregard all martial intent, have tai chi forms practiced with weapons. These can range from simple staves or swords to esoteric Chinese weapons. Try a faster form. Ironically, and in opposition to the public's general idea of tai chi, most traditional family styles (including Yang, Chen,Fa and Wu) have a "fast form." This form is often used as a way of expressing the martial power honed and stored in slow form practice. It is sometimes called "Cannon Fist" (pao chui) in Chen style. Learn about partner work. If forms practice is tai chi's solo workout, "pushing hands" (tui shou) is its partner exercise. Though eventually it can lead into free sparring, push hands is essentially an exercise meant to develop the sensitivity and skill of tai chi in a cooperative way. Generally, the learning of push hands builds steadily; moving from fixed-stance patterns with a single hand, and ending in a moving step pattern with both hands sometimes varying in height and speed. Classwork is one thing but learning the meaning, philosophical underpinning, and history of tai chi takes time and much of it is best done through reading and learning in your own time. This is an important part of learning tai chi because it provides you with the opportunity to get a deeper understanding of how tai chi benefits you mentally and physically, and enables you to find new ideas about enriching your tai chi experience. Other people's learning about tai chi can inform your own and you may want to put some of their ideas into practice to see what works best for you. Feel free to ask your teacher questions about your self-directed learning, such as what to read and questions about what you have read. That way you will expand your understanding a great deal. Read the Tao Te Ching and the I Ching. These books discuss the concept of "chi" and how it can become blocked and when this happens, so does illness.
A: Practice. Commit to practicing for 12 weeks minimum. Keep distractions out of your practice zone. Practice in stressful situations. Expand your repertoire. Read deeply about tai chi.

Q: The settings you entered above are great for practice, but pro surfing servers will use much less forgive settings. Once you're familiar with how surfing works, change the sv_airaccelerate 800 value to sv_airaccelerate 100. You can decrease it in increments until you reach 100 so that you can get used to the slower air acceleration speed. Big jumps may look cool, but they'll kill your forward momentum. If you're trying to get the best times, you'll want to stick to low jumps to clear the space you need while maintaining your speed. The longer you hold Space, the higher you'll jump. Try to just tap it to clear the gaps you need to get over. The one time big air can come in useful is if you've found a shortcut you can use or a part fo the map you can skip. This almost always requires a very high speed so that you can make the jump. Not all maps have skippable sections. The M3 shotgun is one of the best weapons to use while surfing, as it stays accurate even while moving quickly. It's meant for close range, so try to use it on players using the same surfing ramp as you. Not all servers allow you to use guns and attack other surfers. Try to avoid automatic weapons, as the accuracy will be terrible. The same goes for single shot snipers, as you'll never get an accurate shot while moving. You'll lose all of your momentum as well, but this can be a good tactic if you've already messed up your jump. Be aware that not all servers look kindly on blockers, so you may get kicked if it's against the rules.
A:
Adjust your game settings. Avoid big air. Look for shortcuts and corners you can skip. Use shotguns if you want to attack other players. Block other players by stopping in front of them.