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[Help Thread] Colour Neutral Discussion and Help

HeyCuber

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I could almost say I'm colour neutral now. My only problem is that I sometimes forget the cross colour while solving for a second. And it happens on white, too. This is because I hurry while timing. I should practice slow more.
 
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jskyler91

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I could almost say I'm colour neutral now. My only problem is that I sometimes forget the cross colour while solving for a second. And it happens on white, too. This is because I hurry while timing. I should practice slow more.

I used to do that a lot until I started planning my first pair during inspection, since then it hasn't happend anymore. Eventually your mind will learn to flip a switch and searching for your first pair helps it to do this.
 

Zyrb

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As for me, my times have finally started to improve. My biggest issue is that my times are inconsistent, There is almost a 2 second difference between my red/orange start vs. my green/blue. Hopefully I can work out the kinks and get to my goal soon.
 

Achifaifa

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New update here, looks like I'm stuck at ~39-43s averages and can't do the F2L in a reasonable amount of time. I hope practise will solve it, for the moment I can do fine with white, yellow and orange. with blue, green and read I just fail to spot the colours and look forward to them.

It kinda pisses me off that I can't do sub 30 solves (even with white), and it's really frustrating not to be able to beat or even get close to my own PB, even if I now know almost full PLL :(
 
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Madde532

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yeah it can be very frustrating, but the key is just patience and practise. Have you watch jskylers video about how to become color neutral in one month? i watched his video and followed it to onehundred percent and one month later i was cn. i think that it should not be so hard to become cn, if you just belive in yourself and belive that you can be color neutral i think you can make it. And you just have three colors left, you are half color neutral see it in that way.
 

cmhardw

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Almost sub-14 with CN! This is only 0.35 second away from my actual pb average (!):
15.25, 11.38, (10.79), 14.51, 13.34, 15.08, 13.34, 13.79, 14.48, (19.03), 15.35, 14.37 = 14.09

Red and orange are starting to "feel" easy to solve. On green and blue I still need to focus a lot to be able to look ahead. Woot! I'll probably stop spamming this thread soon and just post in the regular accomplishments thread.
 

jeff081692

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Hello guys, I took a break from speedcubing right after I reached my goal of sub 20 and have now decided to return. Upon returning I knew my times would be bad so after I practiced a little to get back around 20, I found the video on becoming color neutral in a month. Unfortunately I misread and spent 4 days on each color however I have my times logged in case anyone wants an idea of the ups and downs of switching to color neutral. I have almost completed the whole month and my original color was green.

date best avg5 avg12

1-29-12 15.13 17.52 19.38

1-30-12 16.08 17.00 18.29

1-31-12 15.15 17.61 18.14

2-01-12 13.68 19.00 19.82 note: day 1 of 4 of blue cross loosened screws also.

2-02-12 15.23 16.53 18.39 note: day 2 of 4 of blue cross

2-03-12 14.70 18.30 18.77 note: day 3 of 4 of blue cross

2-04-12 15.08 17.72 18.68 note: day 4 of 4 of blue cross

2-05-12 17.76 21.59 21.87 note: day 1 of 4 of white cross

2-06-12 16.30 21.09 21.24 note: day 2 of 4 of white cross

2-07-12 15.03 19.64 20.27 note: day 3 of 4 of white cross

2-08-12 18.21 20.71 21.86 note: day 4 of 4 of white cross

2-09-12 17.27 18.77 19.82 note: white and blue cross day

2-10-12 18.02 19.09 19.73 note: day 1 of 4 of yellow cross

2-11-12 15.19 18.83 19.48 note: day 2 of 4 of yellow cross

2-12-12 16.72 20.12 20.78 note: day 3 of 4 of yellow cross

2-13-12 15.68 19.12 19.71 note: day 4 of 4 of yellow cross

2-14-12 15.87 18.26 19.19 note: white blue yellow cross day

2-15-12 19.11 21.64 22.75 note: day 1 of 4 of red cross

2-16-12 19.31 21.28 22.64 note: day 2 of 4 of red cross

2-17-12 17.92 20.85 22.06 note: day 3 of 4 of red cross

2-18-12 15.01 18.53 20.16 note: day 4 of 4 of red cross

2-19-12 16.97 18.45 19.56 note: day 1 of 4 of orange cross

2-20-12 16.25 18.18 20.27 note: day 2 of 4 of orange cross

2-21-12 16.37 20.25 20.80 note: day 3 of 4 of orange cross

2-22-12 15.17 19.72 21.03 note: day 4 of 4 of orange cross

2-23-12 16.02 18.47 19.17 note: day 1 of 4 all but green

2-24-12 14.76 17.21 18.00 note: day 2 of 4 all but green

2-25-12 14.65 16.48 18.43 note: day 3 of 4 all but green

2-26-12 12.63 16.85 18.07 note: day 4 of 4 of all but green (new pb single)

Finished now can do all colors.

Training consisted of 40 solves each day (college is busy) but on good days I will do some extra pure F2L solves as that is the only hard part of being trying to be color neutral.
 
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PandaCuber

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I think that im getting better at being color neutral. Ive done solves here and there and I can do Blue and Green much easier and especially on big cubes. But with CFOP, roux has been much harder. So im starting to getting good at it with CFOP then transition to roux.
 
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ressMox

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Feb 4, 2012
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It's been 3 weeks since I've switched to CN and I think I can finally consider myself fully CN. I sort of followed jskyler's model but compressed it into the first week. Roughly a day and a half solving only on one colour, followed by half a day solving on the opposite face, and one solving on the best of the two followed by a day of solving on the best except white at the end. Before I switched I was averaging just slightly sup-30 (around 31-32). After the first week my average went up to about 35. My scores deviated a lot though, cross on red, yellow and orange would be closer to 30, while blue and green would be closer to 40 and sometimes sup-40. Some averages would be sub-30 and some would be sup-35 B/G recognition was a bit difficult with the crappy dayan stickers.

During the transition I found myself having to concentrate a lot on what color I was solving on, at points I had to actively remind myself and state out loud which color I was solving the cross on. Also, my lookahead suffered a lot during the first two weeks and it took a solid amount of work and practice to get back to around the same speed and lookahead as I was with white cross. The problem was that I'd sometimes find myself staring directly at the piece I was looking for and my brain would not register that it was the correct piece.

After two weeks I was closer to where I had been before I switched after working a lot on lookahead with different colours. With white only, my lookahead was almost intuitive, and I wouldn't have to concentrate very much to get times close to 30. During the switch, I found that I had to process a lot more information while inserting/searching for my next F2L pair. Sometimes even my OLLs and PLLs wouldn't "click" immediately.

Three weeks later, I haven't really timed myself over the past week with the exception of yesterday for the Race to Sub-30. This week I worked on being able to lookahead while turning slightly faster, and I slowly but consistently kept incrementing my tps. I got my PB Ao12 yesterday which was 27.82, with some solves closer to 25 and 20 and only 3 sup-30 solves. Although I haven't timed myself much, I find that it's become a lot easier to switch between different color crosses from one solve to the next. I find that I'm starting to develop and intuitive understanding of the color scheme regardless of how the cube is oriented. Once in a while I will still insert and F2L pair incorrectly and sometimes take a second to remember what color edge I'm looking for, but I find that it's getting easier.

Was it worth it or not? Well to be honest, I'm not sure. I found it difficult to fully transition and I was only averaging slightly above 30. I can't imagine how difficult it would be for some of you who average 20 seconds or less. jskyler's model is logical and could be used to transition from fixed to CN, but it's up to you to decide whether it's worth it or not. If you currently average around 30 or higher and wouldn't mind taking a bit of a detour in your progress, I'd recommend it. I can't be sure that I wouldn't have progressed faster if I stayed with white fixed, in all honesty I probably would have. But I consider myself fully CN now and I quite like it (especially since I tend to be a slow crosser).

TL;DR: Transition to CN could be done, it's up to you to decide whether you want to or not.
 

jeff081692

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Well I have completed my color neutral training and updated my progress log in my last post above and my perspective right now is that by far If I do green or blue I will get the best times if there is a good cross. So a majority of the time I will try to solve blue or green but when there are no good crosses for either I can find a pretty good cross on the other 4 colors and still get sub 20, so as a whole my average is more consistently better than doing just one color and I have gotten pretty fast solves with each color.

I wouldn't say I am completely color neutral because I do have preferred colors, but I am color neutral enough to not do bad with any given color. Over time I will get more use to the other colors but I am not going to put any more extra effort into going through this process further because I am happy with my results as of now. But when the time comes that the other colors catch up to my green and blue then I will really start seeing the full benefits of all this.
 

Ickenicke

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The road to CN

I wanted to make a thread with some tips on how you can become color neutral.
Yes, I have seen jskyler's threads, but I think this is pretty different. I become CN in about 2-3 weeks without any special schedule or something like that.

1. Just start solving CN, try to always choose the easiest cross. Beacuse that is the big thing of CN, I think this is a good way start with. My opinion is that if you start by solving just one other colour you will not become CN that fast. If you can 1-look the cross this step isn't that hard. You just have to learn how to choose the best cross.

2. Solve both color neutral and with just your main color in the beginning. The thing that helped me most was to solve first with white cross (my old main color) and then use the same scramble with other colors at front and top. Then use the same solution and you will know what is going to happen. Try to lookahead and watch what you are doing with the cube.
Also try to compare your CN solves and your ordinary solves, and see what you are doing better when solving with just one color.

3. The biggest thing that helped me to be CN that fast was that I learned lot of news F2L tricks which I had to learn both for CN and Not-CN. Then my F2L solving become much better. If you are learning other things at the same thing it IS easier. A person who start cubing and is CN from the beginning has easier to be CN, and I think it is beacuse they are learning alot of new things.

This was just some small tips, and if you have eny questions, feel free to ask:)

Also notice that this is just the way I become CN in, and I am sure there are very many different ways. I hope this can help anyone!:)
 

Ickathu

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Bumping, sorry.

Who here is CN with Roux? I mean completely CN.
I can do W/Y for top or bottom, but any other Top and Bottom colors and I totally screw up. As in, 45-60+ times, when I average 32 with WY roux. I'm completely color neutral with CFOP, I don't even think about looking for better color crosses anymore, I just pick the best, no matter what color without thinking. With roux though...
Should I keep practicing, or just stick with Opposite CN?
 

JonnyWhoopes

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Bumping, sorry.

Who here is CN with Roux? I mean completely CN.
I can do W/Y for top or bottom, but any other Top and Bottom colors and I totally screw up. As in, 45-60+ times, when I average 32 with WY roux. I'm completely color neutral with CFOP, I don't even think about looking for better color crosses anymore, I just pick the best, no matter what color without thinking. With roux though...
Should I keep practicing, or just stick with Opposite CN?

I don't know of anybody who is decently fast and is also fully CN. I knew one guy a long time ago on the MTC forums who was trying but he only ever averaged ~21. Everybody else who is decently fast is opposite CN on either U/D or L/R.
 
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