Blindfold Accomplishment Thread

[Mike Hughey]

Mike – nice improvement on 5x5 bld! It’s under WR out of a sudden. Now you will see such times regularly. It just works that way.
I have also seen your video, in which you are doing blindfold while juggling. I practiced it for few days and got my first success today – it took me 5:04. Very interesting event.

Thanks Rafal! I'm still doubting I'm really that fast, but I can tell there's been a sudden big improvement - all of a sudden sub-18 seems almost expected and anything above that feels slow, even though I pretty much never got a time like that before. Now if I could just get this to transfer over to 4x4x4 BLD; I don't know why I'm still so slow on that.

Congrats on the juggling BLD success. It's nice that you're always up for my crazy events. Do you juggle? (Other than the 2 in one hand, I mean.)

[rafal]

Congrats on the juggling BLD success. It's nice that you're always up for my crazy events. Do you juggle? (Other than the 2 in one hand, I mean.)

Thanks! And no, I don’t juggle - well, I can juggle 3 balls but that’s it.

As for 4x4 bld, the way I see it, one has to rush through memo and execution to get a very good time at it. And this is not the case in 5x5 bld, where you can go at normal speed and still get a very good time. 5x5 bld takes longer, so understanding the concept and smooth solving is more important than speed.

[McWizzle94]

3x3x3 BLD 1:30.32!!

Non-lucky PB!!!

[Mike Hughey]

Congrats on the juggling BLD success. It's nice that you're always up for my crazy events. Do you juggle? (Other than the 2 in one hand, I mean.)

Thanks! And no, I don’t juggle - well, I can juggle 3 balls but that’s it.

As for 4x4 bld, the way I see it, one has to rush through memo and execution to get a very good time at it. And this is not the case in 5x5 bld, where you can go at normal speed and still get a very good time. 5x5 bld takes longer, so understanding the concept and smooth solving is more important than speed.

You've done very well to not be a juggler. It's not easy to keep 2 balls going for that long. If you can do that, you should have no problem juggling 4 balls. (Just do 2 in each hand - that's standard 4 ball juggling.)

I believe you about 4x4x4 BLD. I have started trying to do solves on a stackmat, and I find that it really helps, since I know I have to finish memorizing in less than 5 minutes or it's an almost certain DNF. I think I've decided to be brave this week and do my weekly competition solves on a stackmat with no stopwatch backup.

And McWizzle, nice job on the 3x3x3 BLD! I have yet to get sub-1:40 on a non-lucky solve, so you're significantly better than me!

[Ville Seppänen]

Ville, congrats on the WR! I’ve seen the video – very nice, calm solving. And my record lasted long enough anyway…

Thanks! I had slow execution though, I always turn faster than that. I tried to get a really fast time on my last solve but it turned out to be an even harder scramble than the first two.

3x3x3 BLD 1:30.32!!

Non-lucky PB!!!

Yay! You're getting closer to sub-1.

Now if I could just get this to transfer over to 4x4x4 BLD; I don't know why I'm still so slow on that.

Meh. It would be cool to see you do faster in 5x5x5 BLD than you are in 4x4x4.

[Raffael]

I just did a successful 2/2 multi-bld in 18:48.48.
I'm going to practice this once each day from now on so I can hopefully do it in my next competition.

btw: still no memo system..

[rjohnson_8ball]

what times do you get, rjohnson?

It still takes me somewhere from 7 to 15 minutes to memo, and 8 to 20 minutes to execute, so 30 minutes total is typical for me. I have a little trouble distinguishing colors (white versus yellow, red versus orange, green versus blue) in the low lighting where I practice. I usually do not automatically match a piece to its location -- as I memo the cycles I confirm that the piece colors will match the center pieces. I review my memo at least 3 times, because I have found in the past that it might not sink in otherwise. I usually do all my edge flips one pair at a time, rather than 4 or more at a time. I do my all my corner orientations either by pairs or triplets, rather than 4 at a time. I often do extra 3-cycles at the end so my parity fix on top is set for an easy T-perm or E-perm.

Today I did 3 more attempts. The first failed because I used corner cubie "5" in a cycle when I meant to use "8". The 2nd failed because I finished with an F-perm but set the U face off by 180 degrees before I started the perm. My 3rd attempt was good, despite being a bit difficult. I've documented my 27 successful BLD solves at http://myspace.com/rjohnson8ball .

"Blah" and Chris H gave me good tips in the thread titled "BLD Training?". Tyson also gave me good tips. I will start using more of the tips as I get more comfortable.

[joey]

Thanks Rjohnson, that was a good read of your 27 BLD solves.

[Mike Hughey]

50:15.94 (22:53), 43:58.67 (19:57), 43:51.09 (21:18), 40:27.70 (18:39), 36:26.00 (18:08) = 42:45.82

6x6x6 BLD average of 5. (Top that, István!)

Okay, so I'm kind of cheating. These are the 6x6x6 BLD solves spread out over the past five weeks for the weekly competition, which are all of the normal 6x6x6 BLD attempts I've made over that time period. I didn't count my 2x2x2 through 6x6x6 relay where I missed the 6x6x6 by 3 pieces, since it wasn't a regular 6x6x6 BLD single solve. Still, it seems unbelievable that I've had a streak of 5 regular 6x6x6 BLD solves in a row with no DNFs, with every one faster than the previous one.

The one for this week was amazing! The centers were kind of easy (not overly so, but still better than average), and there was only one wing parity and no corner parity, which really helps with 6x6x6 (because fear of popping is high for me when doing parity algorithms). I suspect it will be a lot harder to beat this time than the previous ones, but I am inching closer to my sub-30 goal.

[joey]

You're the best. Seriously, the most amazing thing ever.

I noticed your memo on the second was VERY fast (19.57), but execution took 43mins?? :P