I'm asking this question for a friend because his internet is down right now. He wants to know if learning zb before learning oll/plls would be good. he averages about 42 seconds right now. Anything will help, thanks
when to learn ZB method
I'm asking this question for a friend because his internet is down right now. He wants to know if learning zb before learning oll/plls would be good. he averages about 42 seconds right now. Anything will help, thanks
ZB is unnecessary, even for sub-10 solves.
Especially if he doesn't know OLL/PLL already. If OLL/PLL doesn't work for him, ZB most certainly won't. If OLL/PLL does, it should last him at least to sub-20, and I would say at least to sub-15 should he go that far. If he was stuck at 14-16 seconds and felt like the idea of Fridrich was good and had a lot of time on his hands and felt for some reason a 2-look LL wasn't enough, then maybe he should experiment with ZB. But before learning OLL/PLL, attempting ZB would be ridiculous.
I don't think it's necessary ever to learn ZB. People like Harris Chan and Yu Nakajima have gotten sub-11 averages with Fridrich.
Everything I'm going to say has pretty much all been said here, but I want to give my two cents because I have a lot of experience with both Fridrich and ZB.
ZB is an amazing method. I am 100% confident that it can be faster than Fridrich. Just using ZBF2L and 20% ZBLL, I have averaged sub 12 once and my average average is usually in the low 13s. My Fridrich average average is usually low to mid 12. So once I get more comfortable using the ZBLL cases I know now and once I learn more ZBLL, I know I will be faster with this method than I am with Fridrich.
That being said, it really only makes sense to start working on ZB once you have fully mastered the Fridrich method. After all, ZB is merely an extension of Fridrich, so it would be silly to try and learn ZB first.
I wouldn't call ZB unnecessary at all. Our goal as a speedcubing community is to push the limits of what we can do with the cube as much as we can. The ZB method is an area in our speedcubing world that is mostly unknown. Its boundries have never really been tested. However, I can guarantee you that two years from now I will consistently be averaging sub 11, and will be able to occassionally do a sub 10 average. That's how much faith I have in ZB. Now, that might or might not be possible with Fridrich, who knows. But I know that I have reached my limits with Fridrich and I still want to be faster.
And that's really what it's all about. In the end it's really up to you. Are you bored with Fridrich? Do you enjoy learning algorithms? Have you reached your limit with the Fridrich method? If so, then maybe it's time for you to start working on ZB. However, you must have the Fridrich method mastered before you even start thinking about it.
I could say more on the subject, but I'll stop. Basically, your friend should learn OLL/PLL and work on Fridrich until he's at least sub 15. Then if he still wants to learn ZB, more power to him.
That applies to pretty much every method except Fridrich.Originally Posted by Jason Baum
Jason stay motivated to learn ZB. From what I remember when I was studying ZBF2L I ran into enormous opposition, and people trying desperately to convince me of how I was wasting my time.
You're not wasting your time. I stopped learning ZB because blindfolded solving became more of a passion for me than speedsolving. But I am a full 100% supporter of what you are doing. I also believe that although it will take a monumental effort to master ZB vs. mastering Fridrich, that it can be a faster method.
Keep at it man, you're a huge inspiration. Don't let the ne-sayers get you down, I got a lot of that too when I was looking into the method. I'm only surprised that you are still getting it, what with your ZB times being so fast. I think the opposition from the cubing community comes from a fear of something so different which requires so much work more than anything else. That is only my personal opinion of course.
Chris
All that is even more true for the COLL approach, Fridrich is not the only or even best way to ZB.
Man now I have this inspiration to learn ZB when (and if) I eventually get fast at Fridrich.
I feel that learning methods are driven by popularity mostly. Most people aren't willing to learn new (or rarely used/not used by many people) method/technique, unless it is claimed to be used by "the top cubers". They think, "well if top cubers only use Fridrich, why bother learning ZB/Petrus/Roux/Heise etc. ?" But that's the problem sometimes. Some brave soul like Jason has to come out and prove it to everyone that learning new things is never much of a waste, in fact it can be better.
Just like multi-slotting. A lot of people don't even know how they work. They just hear the word "multi" and they get scared away, or think of it as a fancy technique that has no use, or that it is not logical, just because not many people use it, therefore it isn't as easy to just google up tons of page about it. When it is a new method, you have to put more effort into exploring it more, not just having the solutions right in front of you. But in return you have that feeling/braging right that, " hey, I'm the only guy that can do that" type of thing. And eventually you will succeed.
Knowing more algos or techniques is like having tricks up your sleeves, making each solve the best it can be, using "special algo" for certain cases to make the next step skipped/easier. I think that's what the future of cubing is. It isn't about solving the current thing and just trying to predict the next step; it is changing the next step as you're doing the current one to make things easier or shorter. That of course, will require much more knowledge and experience than our average Fridrich solvers know. Imagine when Fridrich method first came up; don't you think people might say, "That's too complicated, trying to solve 2 layers at the same time? You're dealing with too many cases and pieces, you'll confuse yourself! It'll take you longer to find those pieces than me just solving each piece one by one anyways! And doing the last layer in 2 steps? You'd need a super brain for that!" Well, ok so it might not be exactly that kind of attitude, there's probably some optimistic that this is much more powerful than LBL, but you get the point. It's the same kind of situation right now. We have some other techniques, it's just whether people bother to learn it and make their own thoughts about it like now that we have millions of pages on Fridrich compared to a few years ago.
Okay sorry for some random stuff I wrote there, but it's just been on my mind for a while.
-Harris
Last edited by Harris Chan; 12-09-2007 at 08:00 PM.
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