Older cubers discussions

[mark49152]

Using the U sticker will make it easier to discuss with others as that seems most common. It also helps to recognise that B, C and D are just PLL algs.

M2 is easy enough. There is the complication due to displacement of M slice targets, and algs for those, but nothing that should put you off. Noah's tutorial is a good one.

 

[pglewis]

I'll just put in another vote for going straight to M2. I learned it that way from the start and agree there's no point in OP edges when M2 isn't that much harder.

Edit to add that when tracking edge cycles I'll free some fingers up once I've covered all the pieces on a particular face, I can just remember all those are done. Edge cycles are still the hardest part of the mechanics for me.

 

[kbrune]

@Jason Green
Welcome to the dark side! I also suggest going to M2. Especially if you already understand the setups and buffer position.

I regretted not going to M2 sooner after realizing how much better it was. I was intimidated with the idea that M2 was sooooo much more advanced. But to be honest I learned it way faster then I thought I would. It requires a few more algs but not more then 4-5. And 3 of them are very simple.

sighted solves witout memo is good. But oddly enough it's a bit easier to execute with your eyes closed. somehow seeing the pieces move around will mess you up sometimes. However it's harder to figure out mistakes early on when you attempt execution with eyes closed.

Glad you're loving it. It's super fun. I've kinda slacked off on bld recently. I really need to get back at it!

 

[newtonbase]

sighted solves witout memo is good. But oddly enough it's a bit easier to execute with your eyes closed. somehow seeing the pieces move around will mess you up sometimes. However it's harder to figure out mistakes early on when you attempt execution with eyes closed.

I use a compromise. I look at the cube, execute a pair with my eyes closed and then check it has worked. It's a good way of practicing comms.

 

[Mike Hughey]

sighted solves witout memo is good. But oddly enough it's a bit easier to execute with your eyes closed. somehow seeing the pieces move around will mess you up sometimes. However it's harder to figure out mistakes early on when you attempt execution with eyes closed.

I remember back when I was first competing at big cubes BLD and I had learned commutators, I literally never practiced with eyes open - only with eyes closed. Then when I went to my first competition competing in big BLD and attempted my first solve and got close - off by just a few pieces - I remember how embarrassed I was sitting next to Chris Hardwick and Daniel Beyer and having to close my eyes so I could solve those final pieces. I couldn't do it while looking at the cube!

@Jason Green, so good to see another person going after BLD. And yeah I would go M2 to start. Learning inferior methods doesn't help much with BLD, and I think all those inferior methods I learned first really hold me back.

@Selkie, yes, you need to get into it. Once you caught the bug, you'd probably get really good at it really fast. Considering the way you've improved at speedsolving, you're probably the type that would be sub-minute in less than a year once you started.

I have been trying to switch to memorizing corners with images and edges with audio, and have found it a tough thing; I think that may be one thing us oldies have more trouble with than the younger cubers - switching methods is rough! But I'm starting to get the hang of it, and this morning I got my new PB memorizing this way and solving edges first: 1:00.35 (it was admittedly an easy 10/6). So close to sub-minute! I'll get one soon!

 

[Mike Hughey]

I use a compromise. I look at the cube, execute a pair with my eyes closed and then check it has worked. It's a good way of practicing comms.

I used to do drills where I would go alphabetically through my image list and try to solve each commutator - I'd close my eyes, execute the commutator, open my eyes to check, then close my eyes and execute the inverse, then execute the next one, then open my eyes to make sure my previous one was undone correctly and my new one was executed correctly. I'd do time drills to see how fast I could do all the letter-pair images for a given starting letter. It takes a while, but it's really good practice.

 

[kbrune]

I have been trying to switch to memorizing corners with images and edges with audio, and have found it a tough thing; I think that may be one thing us oldies have more trouble with than the younger cubers - switching methods is rough! But I'm starting to get the hang of it, and this morning I got my new PB memorizing this way and solving edges first: 1:00.35 (it was admittedly an easy 10/6). So close to sub-minute! I'll get one soon!

Man oh man rough is an understatement!
@Mike Hughey
Mike I'm currently hovering around 2:30-3:00 for BLD. Do you remember being stuck at any point, feeling like you woudnt be able to get quicker? The consensus seems to be just to push memo speed as far as advice goes. Eventually the memo will speed up they say. Do you agree?

 

[pglewis]

@Mike Hughey: good to see an active oldie in my neighborhood, here's hoping to meet up at a regional comp before too long!

 

[Mike Hughey]

Mike I'm currently hovering around 2:30-3:00 for BLD. Do you remember being stuck at any point, feeling like you woudnt be able to get quicker? The consensus seems to be just to push memo speed as far as advice goes. Eventually the memo will speed up they say. Do you agree?

Maybe it will comfort you to know that I originally felt quite stuck at about 4-5 minutes. Of course, admittedly that was 3OP - that was when I was solving according to Macky (Shotaro Makisumi)'s very early instructions on how to solve BLD.

I've been seemingly stuck several times along the way. When I was practicing at my hardest, I was just starting to get under the 1 minute barrier, with lots of algorithm drills and memorization practice. And it seemed almost impossible to ever go beyond. Now I think that switching to memorizing edges with audio gives me the chance of really getting consistently sub-minute, and I could see myself getting as low as 45 seconds if I can get comfortable with it. Faster than that, I'll have to buckle under and try to catch up to @Selkie with speedsolving; I need to be faster at solving to get much past 45 seconds.

Yes, pushing memo speed seems to be an important part of speeding up. Memorize as fast as you can, then take the time you need to solve it. Try to get the memo speed as low as possible. Practice memorizing in the shortest time you've ever been able to do and see if you can solve it with just that much.

Also, it seems like I would break through most of my barriers when I would learn some new technique. Like I'm hoping switching to audio edges will do!

 

[chtiger]

From a dissenter's point of view, I used OP edges for a long time and don't regret it at all. If I had started with M2, I wouldn't be any faster today, just at my current level earlier, and possibly might be like Selkie and not doing blind at all. And I suck at blind in comps, so doesn't really matter what I use. I think for a beginner, OP edges really is much easier (assuming you're doing OP corners). If you can do and understand OP corners, then you can learn how to do OP edges in about 30 seconds. Practice the setup moves for 5 minutes and you've got it. It took me longer just to learn the algs for M2, than it did to learn OP/OP from scratch and do a successful solve. Plus, the time you save with M2 will mostly be irrelevant until you greatly improve the other aspects of blind. Just don't stick with it as long as I did. (Still not recommending it, just don't understand the hate it gets, ok maybe I am recommending it. Maskow agrees with me at least)

 

[chtiger]

Just got a 1:23.28 3BLD which I think is a PB. Will search this thread when I have more time. Must keep better records!

you beat me, check the PB in my sig

 

[Selkie]

@Mike Hughey - Thank you kind sir. I had a handful of successes > 5 years ago (probably documented in Blindfold Success Thread back in the day) but that was probably 5/200 and I lost confidence. However I have committed to re-learning BLD in time for Weston-super-mare Open, being organised by @Shaky Hands and myself in November so I had better get cracking.

Posted this on FB a few weeks ago but it was pleasure to have a couple of beers with Mats Valk after day 1 of London Open with @Shaky Hands and a couple of others. Had some excellent blue cross advice but only draw back is now I am also a bit motivated to learn some VLS subsets

 

[bubbagrub]

From a dissenter's point of view, I used OP edges for a long time and don't regret it at all. If I had started with M2, I wouldn't be any faster today, just at my current level earlier, and possibly might be like Selkie and not doing blind at all. And I suck at blind in comps, so doesn't really matter what I use. I think for a beginner, OP edges really is much easier (assuming you're doing OP corners). If you can do and understand OP corners, then you can learn how to do OP edges in about 30 seconds. Practice the setup moves for 5 minutes and you've got it. It took me longer just to learn the algs for M2, than it did to learn OP/OP from scratch and do a successful solve. Plus, the time you save with M2 will mostly be irrelevant until you greatly improve the other aspects of blind. Just don't stick with it as long as I did. (Still not recommending it, just don't understand the hate it gets, ok maybe I am recommending it. Maskow agrees with me at least)

I agree, although from a position of some ignorance. I've been using full OP for a while, and am still very slow (> 3minutes). I've been trying to learn M2 in the past couple of weeks, and it really does seem to me to be significantly harder to learn than OP. To learn OP edges & corners I had to learn zero algorithms, just pretty simple setup moves. For M2, I need to learn a new parity alg, and algs for S and I, as well as two very simple algorithms for C and W. I think I've reached the point now where I'm ok with all the non-alg set up moves, but still need to learn the 5 new algs, and consistently undoing the set up moves correctly seems a lot harder than it is for OP. So, yes, I accept that M2 is a lot faster than OP, but I do think OP is quite a bit easier to learn.

 

[Selkie]

...Faster than that, I'll have to buckle under and try to catch up to @Selkie with speedsolving; I need to be faster at solving to get much past 45 seconds.

Its great to have the closeness of the older community these days. I have to say I am trying very hard to catch @Ron on various events but it is great to receive encouragement and motivation from him and advice. I'll be pleased to get to sub 15 in competition, it feels like its been a long, long road and in all honesty I'll probably concentrate on 5x5 - 7x7 for a while once I am there. I eventually hit top20 ranking in UK in an event at London Open, Clock. Go figure, since I hardly practice but I would feel like a much better accomplishment to rank top20 at 6x6 or 7x7.

 

[newtonbase]

you beat me, check the PB in my sig

Ha ha. Owned
Thought I was going to beat it again tonight but forgot my last pair. Would have been well under 1:20.
I started with OP edges too as M2 looked a bit too much to learn with the practice time I had available. I then moved on once I was comfortable.
I find M2 pretty mindless now and use quite a lot of advanced techniques from @mark49152 's thread which I would recommend to anyone as soon as they know the M slice algs.
@Mike Hughey I'm sure you know what you are doing but I'd still recommend @DeeDubb' s thread on audio pairs.

 

[JanW]

I've never understood why learning something like OP first would do any good. M2 is probably a good place to start.

I know I'm very much in a minority, but I went straight for comms and 3-cycles. Actually, it was seeing a video about how commutators work that got me interested in bld in the first place. Earlier I had watched some (Noah's?) videos on the basics of 3bld, which described OP, but that didn't appeal to me at all. As I saw the video which explained the theory behind commutators, I was very intrigued and started playing around with them. First sighted solves, working out each commutator on the fly, then moving on to bld. Sure it was slow at first to get my head around it, but then progress was really fast. Within 6-8 weeks I was already quite close to the 2 minute mark. Then work got in the way and I didn't solve blind for 6 months or so. However, since I never learned any algorithms, always worked out everything intuitively, there was no problem picking up bld again after the long break.

My biggest problem is that I've never got around to making a proper word list. I've started many times, but somehow as soon as I start, I lose interest in bld... It's now over 18 months since I first learned bld, but apart from the initial 2 months, I've never practiced it actively for more than maybe a couple of weeks, then several months break before I try it again. I think if I ever could finish and learn a word list, this could help keeping up interest.

 

[Mike Hughey]

@Mike Hughey I'm sure you know what you are doing but I'd still recommend @DeeDubb' s thread on audio pairs.

Having mostly not been around for a while, I hadn't noticed that thread. That might have been useful, except that I essentially worked all that out on my own separately. Oh well, I did it the hard way. I will still go over it to see if I can get some tricks to help clean up my worst remaining audio pairs - I do still have a few that are not so good.

For reference: https://www.speedsolving.com/forum/...ocus-on-phonetics-rather-than-spelling.51937/

 

[kbrune]

@Mike Hughey

I was stuck at 4-5 minutes for a long time as well. Until I started talking to the degenerates in this thread! (oops.. autocorrected "amazingly intelligent gentleman" to "degenerates")

You use M2 and comms for corners? or are you full comms?

@JanW

That's impressive! picking up comms and getting down to 2 min in less then 2 months! Im jealous. I've been casually doing sighted full 3 style solves here and there because it's really fun as you said. coming up with comms on the fly is addicting! But I'm still extremely slow at coming up with comms for it to be worth trying in a solve. Not enough of the process is second nature yet.

I hear you on the letter list! I attempted to complete one 3 times before actually deciding to commit to finishing one. So I finished it and memorized my list with anki. But ended up taking a break from cubing due to life being busy.. and now I can't recall all of my letter pairs. Discouragement is delaying me from going back through my list and re-memorizing.

@Selkie

Pretty cool pic! How did you end up with an opportunity to hang with Mats?

 

[kbrune]

@bubbagrub

I wouldn't call myself an edge OP hater. But I do think I should have went straight to M2 given my experience learning it. OP is definitely way easier to learn. But I think the fact that it's so easy makes M2 seem so much harder. Matter of taste and opinion I suppose!

 

[Mike Hughey]

You use M2 and comms for corners? or are you full comms?

I've been full comms for many years now. But some of my comms are pretty bad - there's definitely room for improvement there. I learned corner comms first and used M2 to transition to comms for edges.

As for M2 being difficult to understand, I can certainly empathize. I had real trouble understanding it at first and didn't learn it for a while. Then I started doing r2 for 4x4x4 BLD, and all of a sudden M2 made more sense. I felt M2 was very confusing until I could look at it with the stickers actually being separate pieces, as they are on 4x4x4. So maybe if you're having trouble understanding M2 on 3x3x3, try r2 on 4x4x4. (You don't have to go for learning all of 4x4x4 BLD to take advantage of this - just learn how r2 works for wings on 4x4x4.) Then you may find as I did that M2 suddenly makes lots of sense.