Can everyone be sub 10?

[povlhp]

I am 55 y.o. Apart from fiddling with the cube and often doing 3 sides as a kid many years back, I have cubes for about 2 years. I am getting close to sub-40s. I might be able to hit sub-30, but not faster than that. Don't have enough time to invest in it.

I use Roux, and on slow solves I am pretty efficient. Still do mostly 2-look CMLL, but do know DFDB, and are looking at EOLR for the arrow case. Usually I do 8-10 move FB, and 20 move FB+SB is not that rare. And I don't really spam LSE that fast.

 

[OldSwiss]

I started at the age of 46. Currently my averages are around 25 and some singles were at 18.x
My progress in the last months slowed down massively, even if I practice a lot.

I'm not sure if I can ever reach the 10 second barrier.
Definitely not as an average but with a lucky scramble I think some singles could be possible.
My 18s singles were mostly full step, so with some seconds of progress and a LL Skip it could be possible.

 

[efattah]

I've been cubing for 32 years and I average 14 seconds. No, I do not think everyone can be sub-10. Even a person who practiced 8 hours per day for 5+ years might not reach sub-10 if their finger nerves were not trained at a young age to fire that way, and if their brain is not well suited for geometrical shape recognition. I know really smart people whose hands & brain are absolutely not fit for cubing. They might be able to reach sub-20 after 5 hard years of practice but they would hate every minute of the practice.

 

[Tabe]

Sub -10 is easy to break.

If it's "easy to break", why did it take you four years to do officially in a single? And why haven't you done it in an average?

There have been over 170,000 people to achieve averages in 3x3. Less than 3700 of them have a sub-10. That's roughly 2%. If only 2% of people achieve something, I'd hardly call it "easy".

 

[ruffleduck]

If it's "easy to break", why did it take you four years to do officially in a single? And why haven't you done it in an average?

An individual's performance should not affirm or deny their claim. Abhi was making a general point about the difficulty of sub-10 which may or may not be true (personally I lie on the side that sub-10 is relatively easy compared to common milestones in other hobbies), but you can't make a counterpoint using such fallacious reasoning.

There have been over 170,000 people to achieve averages in 3x3. Less than 3700 of them have a sub-10. That's roughly 2%. If only 2% of people achieve something, I'd hardly call it "easy".

I don't think this data is all that significant in measuring the objective difficulty of sub-10. Most of these results are of people who a) are young and have cubing as one of their first competitive events, thus aren't able to provide performance results that would align more closely to standard progression of other hobbies b) people who treat cubing only semi-seriously or hardly at all.

I don't care enough to research to provide points supporting my view of the difficulty of sub-10 being easier than generally considered; I just wanted to establish that it isn't as lop-sided of an argument as you say. Both sides have some ground.

 

[gsingh]

If it's "easy to break", why did it take you four years to do officially in a single? And why haven't you done it in an average?

There have been over 170,000 people to achieve averages in 3x3. Less than 3700 of them have a sub-10. That's roughly 2%. If only 2% of people achieve something, I'd hardly call it "easy".

@abunickabhi has said sub 2 5bld is easy so I've learned not to take him too seriously.

 

[Tabe]

An individual's performance should not affirm or deny their claim. Abhi was making a general point about the difficulty of sub-10 which may or may not be true (personally I lie on the side that sub-10 is relatively easy compared to common milestones in other hobbies), but you can't make a counterpoint using such fallacious reasoning.

I didn't make a counterpoint. I asked for information - an explanation of why they haven't achieved it in 10 years of competing. If it's "easy", but they haven't yet achieved it, then they should have some insights as to why people would not be able to achieve it.

I don't think this data is all that significant in measuring the objective difficulty of sub-10. Most of these results are of people who a) are young and have cubing as one of their first competitive events, thus aren't able to provide performance results that would align more closely to standard progression of other hobbies b) people who treat cubing only semi-seriously or hardly at all.

I don't care enough to research to provide points supporting my view of the difficulty of sub-10 being easier than generally considered; I just wanted to establish that it isn't as lop-sided of an argument as you say. Both sides have some ground.

If something is "easy", then I would think achieving that milestone should take relatively little or no effort, not months or years of concentrated effort and practice.

It took Max Park 3 years to achieve an official sub-10. It took Tymon 2 years. Less than 3% of all competitors have ever done it. I would love to see some data that backs up the notion of it being easy. Not "easier than generally considered" but easy.

 

[ruffleduck]

I didn't make a counterpoint. I asked for information - an explanation of why they haven't achieved it in 10 years of competing.

I had assumed that you were asking rhetorical questions to indirectly make a point -- my apologies. I must assume logically it must be an unrelated side question, then. (If it is related to a point then it must be a rhetorical question.)

If something is "easy", then I would think achieving that milestone should take relatively little or no effort, not months or years of concentrated effort and practice.

Well, now you've prompted me to raise some points as I find this interesting.

I can't say this definition is invalid, but I don't agree. And that is the core of the disagreement here: I consider something to be "easy" if it is reasonable for any individual to achieve with a non-intensive amount of effort. Most sub-10 cubers I have interacted with have achieved said level by mostly semi-casual practice. Unlike sports, there is no need to vigorously train with a coach; there is no external pressure and years of often harsh drilling like for pianists; there is no tireless hours of study and game analysis like in chess. Compared to these, from my view, ~1 year of cubing (a relatively low demanding hobby) is quite low intensity indeed. Now, I can't assert my view of what constitutes an "easy" milestone as being objectively correct; I just wanted to establish my view.

 

[Tabe]

I can't say this definition is invalid, but I don't agree. And that is the core of the disagreement here: I consider something to be "easy" if it is reasonable for any individual to achieve with a non-intensive amount of effort. Most sub-10 cubers I have interacted with have achieved said level by mostly semi-casual practice. Unlike sports, there is no need to vigorously train with a coach; there is no external pressure and years of often harsh drilling like for pianists; there is no tireless hours of study and game analysis like in chess. Compared to these, from my view, ~1 year of cubing (a relatively low demanding hobby) is quite low intensity indeed. Now, I can't assert my view of what constitutes an "easy" milestone as being objectively correct; I just wanted to establish my view.

I'm going to say that we have significantly different definitions of "easy". A year of practice - your own standard - to do something by definition means it's not "easy" (to me). Being easier than the two things you mentioned doesn't make it "easy". And, even if something is easy for some people, that doesn't make the achievement itself easy. It's gotta be easy for a large percentage of people.

As further evidence of, I again come back to < 3% of all competitors have reached sub-10 officially and the two greatest of all-time - Tymon and Max - both taking multiple years to get there.