Efficient Practice Limit per day

[jskyler91]

First of all, how long have you been cubing Akash? Just curious your progress to practice to time cubing ratio.

As to your poll I would say cube more if you can/ want to and cube less if you aren't in the mood. I say you should cube for one hour minimum a day if you want to keep improving really quickly (for me at least), but that hour does not and IMO should not be all at the same time. I think cubing at three different times of the day is a really good idea. In the morning I usually (haven't been cubing lately, but rather learning new cubing related stuff) do an average of 100 solves. These are slow solves where I do not time inspection and I just warm up my hands and mind/ get down any new algs I have been working on. Sometime midday I do another average of 100 where I go normal speed and try to focus on looking ahead properly. Then at night I do another average of 100 going at full tps and the best lookahead/smoothness i can do. This is all after first doing my warmups which I made a vid on. I also generally end the night by trying to learn something new/ practicing anything I struggled on in the day. This whole process usually takes around 3 hours max.

On the weekends I usually do this and really focus on learning new things/ checking things off my to do list, so I cube more. If I am having a bad day I practice looking ahead more and not tps as much, If I am having a good day I practice tps more and looking ahead less. This whole process works very well for me.

[Sahid Velji]

To add to my previous post, I feel that blindfold cubing has to be practiced at least every other day for me to maintain. To actually improve, I have to do 3 attempts (don't have to be successful solves) or more every day, which I can't do at all. Other events I can maintain AND improve by cubing once a week for 2-3 hours.

[Akash Rupela]

First of all, how long have you been cubing Akash? Just curious your progress to practice to time cubing ratio.

Thankyou. Yes, i saw the warmup video. Helped me get 12.61 NL single in competition. I have many of your videos saved in my laptop
I have been cubing for 10 months now. 1st month with a storebought so not much practice(just memorised 4LLL). After that, it was okayish practice till november(as in 3-4 daily) and i reached at 17-18 average. Since then, i cube at least 5-6 hours a day on an average. I want to be at least sub12(as in not PB, a regular sub12 solver) by the end of this year

[jskyler91]

Thankyou. Yes, i saw the warmup video. Helped me get 12.61 NL single in competition. I have many of your videos saved in my laptop
I have been cubing for 10 months now. 1st month with a storebought so not much practice(just memorised 4LLL). After that, it was okayish practice till november(as in 3-4 daily) and i reached at 17-18 average. Since then, i cube at least 5-6 hours a day on an average. I want to be at least sub12(as in not PB, a regular sub12 solver) by the end of this year

EDIT: I guess the first question is do you want some help with achieving that goal LOL?

If you don't mind, I am going to ask you a bunch of questions to see if I can help you achieve that goal. First of all, do you do all f2l cases from all 4 angles? Do you know any PLL skips/ WV or anything because they really help. How often do you do x-crosses? Are you CN? Have you tried to do a speed BLD solve? Do you look ahead as I described in my vids? How many cases do you have to cube rotate for in your f2l? Do you ever practice 2 side PLL recog or R-OLL? Do you ever turn before you know what/ where your next pair is? I have more, but try and see if you can answer those and I will see if I can give you some tips. BTW I average about 11 seconds or so when I am solving and not learning stuff.

[Akash Rupela]

If you don't mind, I am going to ask you a bunch of questions to see if I can help you achieve that goal. First of all, do you do all f2l cases from all 4 angles? Do you know any PLL skips/ WV or anything because they really help. How often do you do x-crosses? Are you CN? Have you tried to do a speed BLD solve? Do you look ahead as I described in my vids? How many cases do you have to cube rotate for in your f2l? Do you ever practice 2 side PLL recog or R-OLL? Do you ever turn before you know what/ where your next pair is? I have more, but try and see if you can answer those and I will see if I can give you some tips. BTW I average about 11 seconds or so when I am solving and not learning stuff.

Edit- Yes i would love help lol

F2L cases from 4 angles? No, Only 2 i guess(i mean i can recognise them from all angles, but i would start with a y or y' often), I like 2 gen algs. I saw you posted a video about it(dint see the video properly right now, its in my to-do list), but i dont think a y or y' for 2 out of 4 pairs on an average is that much of a harm. I believe i rotate for all cases which cant be solved 2 gen, along with 2 more cases(the one that starts with R2U2 and its mirror, for which i first break the break, then hide edge and pair up, then insert pair)
Forced PLL skips, WV, edge control? No nothing at alll. Just simple solving with 57 OLLs from a single angle and 21 PLLs
No R-OLL or 2 sided recognition as such. It happens that i feel i should get my finger tricks good first and then i will learn this stuff. Then it just gets postponed.
And look ahead, mostly not, i tried planning 1st pair in inspection for about a 100 solves with lots of inspection time, but was a real headache and dint work out for me. I mean i can solve all f2l cases bld, and i can usually track corners in f2l, tracking the pair is tough for me, everything just moves too fast for my mind(even with calm turning)
And Turning before knowing pair? Not much, but often a y or y' or U or U' might occur(i.e never really paid attention to whether i do it)
I Never tried speed BLD
X crosses, almost none, but if i see a super easy setup for a pseudo X cross(for example White Red blue corner already lined up with white red or white blue edge) , then i go for it often. And if a pair is already built, i often dont make a proper cross(dont think much about those cases), i insert the pair between its pieces to get a 2x2x2 block or something and insert other cross piece with a R'FR or its mirror(hope u get the idea).
Color neutral, No,i m not. I average around 20 with yellow and 25-30 with other colours. I am ready to make a transition, i know it will help me in the long term, and good thing is i have no competition till december

Of course, i dont mind answering anything you may ask, I would be glad if you could tell me how to go about things. I mean i know there are a lot of things i need to get right, but too much creates chaos. I dont know what should i start from and how should i go about things
The answers to your questions seemed disappointing a little, but it immediately tells me that i have a lot of areas that i need to improve upon. My main problem is what i believe practising wrong stuff. Apart from some faults in my f2l, i have developed some bad fingertricks and i find it too tough to switch to new fingertricks(U2,D2,M2 slow me down quite a bit).

Thanks a lot

[jskyler91]

Edit- Yes i would love help lol

F2L cases from 4 angles? No, Only 2 i guess(i mean i can recognise them from all angles, but i would start with a y or y' often), I like 2 gen algs. I saw you posted a video about it(dint see the video properly right now, its in my to-do list), but i dont think a y or y' for 2 out of 4 pairs on an average is that much of a harm. I believe i rotate for all cases which cant be solved 2 gen, along with 2 more cases(the one that starts with R2U2 and its mirror, for which i first break the break, then hide edge and pair up, then insert pair)
Forced PLL skips, WV, edge control? No nothing at alll. Just simple solving with 57 OLLs from a single angle and 21 PLLs
No R-OLL or 2 sided recognition as such. It happens that i feel i should get my finger tricks good first and then i will learn this stuff. Then it just gets postponed.
And look ahead, mostly not, i tried planning 1st pair in inspection for about a 100 solves with lots of inspection time, but was a real headache and dint work out for me. I mean i can solve all f2l cases bld, and i can usually track corners in f2l, tracking the pair is tough for me, everything just moves too fast for my mind(even with calm turning)
And Turning before knowing pair? Not much, but often a y or y' or U or U' might occur(i.e never really paid attention to whether i do it)
I Never tried speed BLD
X crosses, almost none, but if i see a super easy setup for a pseudo X cross(for example White Red blue corner already lined up with white red or white blue edge) , then i go for it often. And if a pair is already built, i often dont make a proper cross(dont think much about those cases), i insert the pair between its pieces to get a 2x2x2 block or something and insert other cross piece with a R'FR or its mirror(hope u get the idea).
Color neutral, No,i m not. I average around 20 with yellow and 25-30 with other colours. I am ready to make a transition, i know it will help me in the long term, and good thing is i have no competition till december

Of course, i dont mind answering anything you may ask, I would be glad if you could tell me how to go about things. I mean i know there are a lot of things i need to get right, but too much creates chaos. I dont know what should i start from and how should i go about things
The answers to your questions seemed disappointing a little, but it immediately tells me that i have a lot of areas that i need to improve upon. My main problem is what i believe practising wrong stuff. Apart from some faults in my f2l, i have developed some bad fingertricks and i find it too tough to switch to new fingertricks(U2,D2,M2 slow me down quite a bit).

Thanks a lot

No problems, first of all I would just like to say that I am nowhere near perfect yet either so don't feel bad, but I definately think you have a lot to work on. If you want to be sub 12 by the end of the year the I would say the first thing you should work on before anything else is your f2l, rotating for half of the cases is VERY inefficient and time consuming, especially if you knew the algs I do which are really fast for almost all f2l cases. If I were you I would start here i.e. with f2l and just learn to never cube rotate/ regrip unless you have to. The videos I made on my F2L's should help you to clue into where you are doing things inefficiently. Also, learn to use your thumbs (this is something I was literally completely opposed to as of a month ago, but which I learned REALLY makes your solves smoother as you will see in my f2l vids). Just start with the first video and try to mimic my algs as best you can. Work on each vid for like 3-4 days and then when you have got them down go to the next. Also, you should probably simultaneously try to master those fingertricks, especially the D2s because they make your solves way faster. The reason I say do these things first is because they will have the most immediate effect on your solve times and it is something that you should change ASAP so that you can relearn to lookahead with those new algs before the end of the next two months. After you have done this and likely achieved your goal or at least gotten close, then I would just bite the bullet and go CN; better to get one of the harder/ most time consuming things out of the way first. Then I would take a month or two to just get used to cn and master your new algs, then I would try really working on x-crosses and utilizing your CN to its max. Then maybe some WV and some easy PLL skips and COLL if you really want to although I think it is only worth it for the Bruno and Superman cases, and finally, after you get all of that down, then you should work on changing your look ahead/ R-OLL/2 side PLL recog. This way you work from the bottom up: Rework your actual algs, then your method a bit and finally look ahead. You can of course learn to lookahead differently while you learn your new F2l algs as well, but really focus on getting those new algs down because lots of y's is very inefficient. I hope that helps you.

[Akash Rupela]

Thanks a lot. That sounds just perfect, just wish i can keep the patience to execute this plan. Also, this makes me wonder why was i mostly solving and solving till now(its 5 months since i know full cfop and learnt nothing new, how was i supposed to improve more than 3 seconds). I realise whenever someone creates a thread regarding how to improve, everyone replies "Practice" . (happened with me too when i created a thread 9 months back here). I hope we can change the general mentality of the cubing community , which should become, perfect your method and turnstyle first, then practice practice practice

[jskyler91]

Thanks a lot. That sounds just perfect, just wish i can keep the patience to execute this plan. Also, this makes me wonder why was i mostly solving and solving till now(its 5 months since i know full cfop and learnt nothing new, how was i supposed to improve more than 3 seconds). I realise whenever someone creates a thread regarding how to improve, everyone replies "Practice" . (happened with me too when i created a thread 9 months back here). I hope we can change the general mentality of the cubing community , which should become, perfect your method and turnstyle first, then practice practice practice

Ya, just practicing is not really the best way to improve.