A better way to improve

I had a friend came over to my place yesterday to play Go. He's from China, and he happens to be quite strong. He said that he never played in a proper club, so he doesn't know his exact rank. From the way he plays, I reckon he's around 2-3Kyu. After playing around 3-4 games, I noticed that it's much more easier to learn something new by playing a real game, rather than playing it online.

Maybe this is because you actually touch and feel the stones, which makes it a lot easier to comprehend advance moves. But the thing is, in the area where I live in, a good Go player is really hard to come by. I only meet them at Go clubs, once a week. Another thing I realise about playing live games is that you'll have to do the counting yourself. For somebody who's only been playing more internet games, this can get quite difficult. I took me a few live games to understand how to count the territory, and it was fun. :)