Goal... Reached... Mark thing.

[Iwannaganx]

So I'm trying to be sub 35 at the moment, and was wondering how I know when I have but that mark. I always went off ao100, but what should I be going off? Ao50? Ao12? What do you mark you goals at?

 

[AbsoRuud]

When you are confident that just about every solve you are going to do is going to be sub 35, then you are sub 35.

 

[Iwannaganx]

Most of my solves are sub 40 but i occasionally get 40+ in about one in 12.

 

[AbsoRuud]

Most of my solves are sub 40 but i occasionally get 40+ in about one in 12.

I'm pretty solidly sub 30, but I still get the occasional 40+ solve. It's alright. When I start solving, I'm pretty sure to get a sub 30, unless something goes wrong. So I consider myself sub 30. My Ao1000 is also sub 30. So I'm good.

 

[Hazel]

I usually say I'm sub-x when my current Ao1000 becomes consistently under x seconds.

 

[SM cubing]

Im very arbitrary, i just go by my current ao100

 

[GAN 356 X]

I tend to go by ao100 or ao500. sometimes ao50

 

[xyzzy]

Go with whatever you feel like, but keep it fixed and don't adjust your metric, at least until you've hit your current goal. If you've already decided on sub-35 ao100 as your goal, you don't get to cheat and pretend it counts when you get a sub-35 ao50. That's not good enough! And when you do hit your current goal, don't dwell on it; immediately adjust it downwards. After the first solve that makes your ao100 sub-35, don't obsess over trying to maintain that—lower your goal to sub-32 ao100 or sub-30 ao100 or whatever, and try to hit that.

Spoiler: some tl;dr rambling

Small averages like ao5 and ao12 are very variable and luck plays a huge part in whether you get "good" results. You can use small averages as a goal if you want, but to me it feels kind of empty if (e.g.) my actual average is 30 seconds and I get a sub-20 ao5 just because I got moderately lucky on four out of those five solves, and immediately after those five solves my ao5 shoots back up to 30-ish seconds.

The larger the number of solves, the less of a role luck plays, making the average a better indicator of skill, but if you're improving quickly, very large averages (>1000 solves) also lag behind your current skill a bit. Roughly speaking, it's lagging behind by half of the average's size, so an ao500 captures how fast you were 250 solves ago, an ao1000 captures how fast you were 500 solves ago, etc. And I guess I should also put "skill" in scare quotes, because there are many factors that affect how you solve the cube, beyond what one might naively consider to be "skill". Did you get at least seven hours of sleep the night before? When was your last meal? When was the last time you drank water? What's your current mood? How long have you been cubing non-stop for? And so on. What very large averages do is that they can capture variation in all of these "external" factors, while medium averages (ao50/100) are much worse at doing that. (Note that all of the factors I mentioned actually are (at least partially) within your control, and I think it's fair to consider controlling or adjusting for those factors to be a skill in and of itself.)

Having a lagging average isn't that big a deal (if you do a hundred solves a day, your ao1000 is lagging behind by only five days), so when in doubt, go for larger averages.

 

[Iwannaganx]

This is a great help, but more specifically to @xyzzy I only do about 20-50 solves a day. Most of my solves for the last about three days have been right on 35, but my ao100 is only just sub40.
But really thanks guys this is heaps of info.

 

[GAN 356 X]

This is a great help, but more specifically to @xyzzy I only do about 20-50 solves a day. Most of my solves for the last about three days have been right on 35, but my ao100 is only just sub40.
But really thanks guys this is heaps of info.

I either do very little or like 100-300 solves. It depends on the amount of free time I suppose

 

[GAN 356 X]

How do you work around things like learning to become colour neutral and learning other cube types? do you stop doing timed solves and work on that current think\g?

 

[Iwannaganx]

I either do very little or like 100-300 solves. It depends on the amount of free time I suppose

Yes me too. But if I get 100 solves in a day that's good for me. And offer my mother tells me to stop because it's too loud. She hates cubing I think...

 

[Filipe Teixeira]

Anything my conscience tells me it's legit.

Also, if you have a sub-x ao12 you'll try having an ao50 and so on

 

[OreKehStrah]

How do you work around things like learning to become colour neutral and learning other cube types? do you stop doing timed solves and work on that current think\g?

You just have to decide to spend you time practicing any given thing. So you’d pick one thing like 4x4 or CN and only practice that. Deliberate practice is underrated.

 

[GAN 356 X]

Yes me too. But if I get 100 solves in a day that's good for me. And offer my mother tells me to stop because it's too loud. She hates cubing I think...

Thats kind of the same with me. I don't think she hates it but she thinks I do it too much and get grumpy when I am doing a long session. But really, that is just me being interrupted doing a long session and getting peeved at the interruption

 

[Zeke Mackay]

For me, of any 10 solves, I can be confident about 7 are sub x

 

[Nmile7300]

I just try to get far enough ahead of "sub x" that I don't even have to worry about whether I'm "sub x" or not.