Tyler Comfy Hat
Member
Hello, my name is Tyler.
Today was the day I finally reached a unanimous agreement with myself, my gut, and my instincts to go to my first cubing event; WGC. And so, I figured it was only right to start interacting with the community and meeting people, and stuff. And I'm sure joining this forum wasn't a bad place to start!
Alright, this is an introduction thread so I might as well tell you about my humble beginnings, why not?
The first time I ever picked up a Rubiks Cube was when I was roughly 9 or 10. I got it for a few pennies at a flea market. It was a very cruddy and poorly made cube. Then I gave up trying to solve it, and left it to rot at the bottom of the Toybox. Around three years later, when I was about 12 or 13, I discovered that one tutorial on YouTube which pretty much everyone (who was starting cubing) learned from at the time. So I dug out that cheap cube I had, and finally taught myself how solve the darn thing. Then, I stopped solving it at some point (probably got bored) and forgot about the Rubiks Cube completely.
...Six years later, November 2014, 18 (soon to be 19) year old me buys himself another Rubiks Cube, and re-learns how to solve it, because I completely forgot.
I really wish I could say that this re-introduction to the art of the Cube was brought about by something grand. Like, say, fate calling upon me to fufill my destiny as a champion among cubers, or something equally cool. The truth is a bit more bleak however. At the time, I was suffering from pretty bad clinical depression, I was all but forced to quit University for a year because I was in no state to study or work, and things generally seemed to be in shambles. So I started playing around with a cube, I don't know why. Probably because I watched that one Will Smith movie where he learns to solve it, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. It turned out to be a very therepeutic process, and somehow it made me feel pretty good, despite the circumstances. When I was confident I could solve the 3x3 without messing up or getting stuck, I moved onto the 4x4, the 5x5, the Pyraminx, and so on. So yeah, I have a lot to owe to the Rubiks cube for helping me get through a pretty rough time.
Keep in mind though, at this time I wasn't trying to solve anything fast. I just took my time with it. That was until around this Janurary, when I became hypnotized by the video of Mats Valk scoring that WR Single at 5.55, and I thought "hey, I wanna do that" and the next thing you know, I'm trying to learn CFOP and solve fast.
And that pretty much leads me to where I am today.
--
So outside of cubing, I'm sort of in-between being a University student who studies Animation, which is the general field of work I want to go into when I've got all my degrees and I'm done with education. I live in a lovely forrest-y part of England with my folks. My other hobbies include reading literature, sometimes writing it (Though I've never really finished anything, and even if I did, I'd be really shy about letting anyone read it.). I'm also a huge movie buff, I go to the cinema at least once a week, and push myself to watch two other movies I've never seen before at home every week, too. I also casually play a few PC games too. Right now I'm playing through GTA V.
---
Now here's the thing, right now I average (on 3x3) at around 50 seconds (yeah yeah, laugh it up), but have been at this pace for a few months now. I know the reason, and it's because until I considered going to my first Competition at some point this week, I've been really stale when it comes to practice. Because my depression has become much less of a problem these days, I guess solving cubes hasn't been as soothing or "rewarding" as it was not too long ago for me. Would anyone, by any chance, have any little tips on how I could stay motivated for practice, while I'm here?
But yeah, this post is already pretty tl;dr as it is, so I'll leave it at that. I'm sure we'll be great friends!
(By the way, I still have that crappy first cube I got)
Today was the day I finally reached a unanimous agreement with myself, my gut, and my instincts to go to my first cubing event; WGC. And so, I figured it was only right to start interacting with the community and meeting people, and stuff. And I'm sure joining this forum wasn't a bad place to start!
Alright, this is an introduction thread so I might as well tell you about my humble beginnings, why not?
The first time I ever picked up a Rubiks Cube was when I was roughly 9 or 10. I got it for a few pennies at a flea market. It was a very cruddy and poorly made cube. Then I gave up trying to solve it, and left it to rot at the bottom of the Toybox. Around three years later, when I was about 12 or 13, I discovered that one tutorial on YouTube which pretty much everyone (who was starting cubing) learned from at the time. So I dug out that cheap cube I had, and finally taught myself how solve the darn thing. Then, I stopped solving it at some point (probably got bored) and forgot about the Rubiks Cube completely.
...Six years later, November 2014, 18 (soon to be 19) year old me buys himself another Rubiks Cube, and re-learns how to solve it, because I completely forgot.
I really wish I could say that this re-introduction to the art of the Cube was brought about by something grand. Like, say, fate calling upon me to fufill my destiny as a champion among cubers, or something equally cool. The truth is a bit more bleak however. At the time, I was suffering from pretty bad clinical depression, I was all but forced to quit University for a year because I was in no state to study or work, and things generally seemed to be in shambles. So I started playing around with a cube, I don't know why. Probably because I watched that one Will Smith movie where he learns to solve it, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. It turned out to be a very therepeutic process, and somehow it made me feel pretty good, despite the circumstances. When I was confident I could solve the 3x3 without messing up or getting stuck, I moved onto the 4x4, the 5x5, the Pyraminx, and so on. So yeah, I have a lot to owe to the Rubiks cube for helping me get through a pretty rough time.
Keep in mind though, at this time I wasn't trying to solve anything fast. I just took my time with it. That was until around this Janurary, when I became hypnotized by the video of Mats Valk scoring that WR Single at 5.55, and I thought "hey, I wanna do that" and the next thing you know, I'm trying to learn CFOP and solve fast.
And that pretty much leads me to where I am today.
--
So outside of cubing, I'm sort of in-between being a University student who studies Animation, which is the general field of work I want to go into when I've got all my degrees and I'm done with education. I live in a lovely forrest-y part of England with my folks. My other hobbies include reading literature, sometimes writing it (Though I've never really finished anything, and even if I did, I'd be really shy about letting anyone read it.). I'm also a huge movie buff, I go to the cinema at least once a week, and push myself to watch two other movies I've never seen before at home every week, too. I also casually play a few PC games too. Right now I'm playing through GTA V.
---
Now here's the thing, right now I average (on 3x3) at around 50 seconds (yeah yeah, laugh it up), but have been at this pace for a few months now. I know the reason, and it's because until I considered going to my first Competition at some point this week, I've been really stale when it comes to practice. Because my depression has become much less of a problem these days, I guess solving cubes hasn't been as soothing or "rewarding" as it was not too long ago for me. Would anyone, by any chance, have any little tips on how I could stay motivated for practice, while I'm here?
But yeah, this post is already pretty tl;dr as it is, so I'll leave it at that. I'm sure we'll be great friends!
(By the way, I still have that crappy first cube I got)