What's a reasonable expectation for time to learn BLD?

[Toquinha1977]

Okay, for those that don't ignore this, I can expect a pile of snarky responses, and I know that I won't accomplish anything until I put in the time and effort (get out of your Ivory tower. Seriously). But, for the ones already adept at BLD, what's a reasonable time frame in which to be able to achieve a BLD solve?

I know this varies from person to person, with the amount of time they can put in per day to their general aptitude (it took me over a year to get to sub30, but I know of people who got there within months), but it would be helpful to know.

 

[DaijoCube]

I'm interested in the answer too since I started learning it I'm almost able to solve all the edges, but I have some problems understanding what is ''breaking in a new cycle'' and how you do it. + some cases.

BTW BLD 2x2x2 or 3x3x3?

 

[LewisJ]

If you just want to quickly get a solve in, read Macky's explanation of cycles and orientation in his 3OP guide to get some perspective and then learn Old Pochmann with Joel's explanation. If you know full OLL and PLL you'll already know 4 or 5 of the 5 algs you need for Old Pochmann. Then assign different stickers to letters for both edges and corners, in a logical order that you can trace through while you get familiar with your lettering system. Do some solves with your eyes open looking at the cube but following the old pochmann method, and think of what letter you're moving the buffer to at each step. When you're comfortable with this, just memorize all the letters and do the same thing with your eyes shut. A few hours of experimentation and trying should do the trick if you're careful.

And if the Old Pochmann tut doesn't load (right now it's not for me), try google's cache of it. Only downside is you probably won't get the pretty applets.

Edit: Also, pick up the simple 2flip alg M'UM'UM'U2MUMUMU2 (or whatever variant your fingers like) for flipped in place edges.

 

[kinch2002]

I averaged 40 when I learnt 3OP in an afternoon - perhaps 5 hours from when I typed in 'bld solve' into google until I had my first success. I knew absolutely nothing about bld before then - hadn't even heard of the different methods. You already know PLL so you could easily learn 3OP or Classic Pochmann because you know all the algs for them (perhaps with the exception of a pure edge flip or something like that). M2 is fairly intuitive so should also be very fast to learn. Once you know what to do it only takes a few sighted solves before you're ready to try.

 

[Toquinha1977]

Thank you for the non-snarky responses, guys.

I've read up on a few of the techniques and had an interest in the M2/R2 method, although I suspect that it may be an intermediate method, with people starting off with 3-cycle methods before graduating to M2/R2. Thoughts?

 

[LewisJ]

Most people start off with 3OP or Old Pochmann. M2 is a popular next step for edges but not many people use R2. I would start with Old Pochmann and expand from there. A common combination for reasonably fast times and reasonably little learning is 3OP corners and M2 edges.

 

[aronpm]

Okay, for those that don't ignore this, I can expect a pile of snarky responses, and I know that I won't accomplish anything until I put in the time and effort (get out of your Ivory tower. Seriously).

You will only get 'snarky' responses if you deserve them or if you expect them. But seriously, you won't accomplish anything until you put effort into it. I can't see how saying that equates to being in an 'ivory tower.'

Don't start off with 3cycle methods. Eric Limeback has a great tutorial about Old Pochmann (for corners) and M2 (for edges). In my opinion, those are the easiest BLD methods. R2 is very slow because most of the targets are in the R slice.

 

[blah]

My opinion: For your long term interest, learn a 3-cycle method first, then switch to a 2-cycle method later on if you feel like it.

I would recommend Macky's pure 3OP guide. In the long run, understanding the underlying concepts of BLD (rather than just learning a quick-and-easy method) is far more important and will get you much further.

As for your expected time, Dan Cohen and I managed to teach someone who knew nothing about BLD to getting his first successful solve in less than 12 hours (the solve was a little over 10 minutes if I remember correctly). He had everything down 3 to 4 hours after we started, the remaining 8 to 9 hours were spent sleeping (we started the crash course at like 2 in the morning) and getting a bunch of close failures.

If you want some credibility to my advice, check out my WCA profile.

 

[kinch2002]

Yeah Blah's not too bad at bld...listen to him!

I learnt from Macky's guide and it was really good (as Chester says) at explaining the overall concept behind what you're doing. Once you've learnt and practised one method it takes about 5 minutes to learn another one, so I wouldn't worry a whole lot about whether you're picking the the 'best' method or not. One tip - R2 is pretty sparsely used for good reason (it's a bit rubbish)

 

[bwatkins]

I had my first succesful solve on about the 20th try. This sounds crazy but its because i abandoned classic memory mehtods and made my own, it made the process about a million times easier. Keep in mind i did a lot of "studying" and focused hard on memoraztion, execution is a cake-walk really.

Of course to master breaking into new cycles and parity (if your using new Pochmann) it will take a little extra studying after that.

I think the best thing you can do is create a memory method that makes sense to YOU! I try and tell others what i do for memo and they think its absolutely ridiculous, but it makes sense the way my brain works.

Also don't memorize setup moves figure them out intuitively, it makes the whole process of solving easier, if you can picture a piece moving around the cube to where you want to shoot too and not just R2D or something you will be a whole lot better at BLD.

*Just a note, i left BLD solving for about 3 months and because i learned strong methods and not a jumbled mess of random BLD information on how to solve i was able to do it still with no problem*

Good Luck!

EDIT: As a sidenote i do not solve BLD fast, ive only timed myself about three times. As far as learning strong methods though, i still think this applies.

 

[riffz]

To be honest, I watched badmehpisto's video on Old Pochmann once the whole way through and watched a few short segments of it a second time. I can't remember what day it was but it was definitely during the week. I tried it for the first time that weekend and got a success on my second solve after messing up execution on the first one (crappy dollar store cube locked up).

I would guess the attempt took about half an hour or less but I didn't time it so I can't know for sure. My memory method really sucked though.

 

[Mitch15]

hey that was ME! yeah... chester and dan gave me a fast crash course, it was pretty awesome

 

[Forte]

I had two completely free days before US Nationals last year and I spent them all to learning Eric Limeback's M2/Old Pochmann corners tutorial. There wasn't much you could do but practice, but one piece of advice is that to practice which letters corresponded to which pieces, I took a dictionary and opened it to a random word and made myself spell it pointing to the corresponding stickers as I went.

 

[LewisJ]

I had two completely free days before US Nationals last year and I spent them all to learning Eric Limeback's M2/Old Pochmann corners tutorial. There wasn't much you could do but practice, but one piece of advice is that to practice which letters corresponded to which pieces, I took a dictionary and opened it to a random word and made myself spell it pointing to the corresponding stickers as I went.

...and for words with W, X, Y, or Z?

 

[riffz]

I had two completely free days before US Nationals last year and I spent them all to learning Eric Limeback's M2/Old Pochmann corners tutorial. There wasn't much you could do but practice, but one piece of advice is that to practice which letters corresponded to which pieces, I took a dictionary and opened it to a random word and made myself spell it pointing to the corresponding stickers as I went.

...and for words with W, X, Y, or Z?

I use W and X since I assigned each edge a letter, including my buffer. My reasoning was that although W and X are hard to make words or images for, I'd rather be able to make a smooth transition to a different method and change my buffer without renaming the pieces.

 

[Forte]

I had two completely free days before US Nationals last year and I spent them all to learning Eric Limeback's M2/Old Pochmann corners tutorial. There wasn't much you could do but practice, but one piece of advice is that to practice which letters corresponded to which pieces, I took a dictionary and opened it to a random word and made myself spell it pointing to the corresponding stickers as I went.

...and for words with W, X, Y, or Z?

I use W and X since I assigned each edge a letter, including my buffer. My reasoning was that although W and X are hard to make words or images for, I'd rather be able to make a smooth transition to a different method and change my buffer without renaming the pieces.

Well, I use W and X (I put U and V on FD lol, I didn't know that I wouldn't need to use them)
But I mean, it's not that hard to come up with a workaround >_>
Use your imagination lol, I probably just assigned Y and Z to W and X as well, no big deal

 

[xXzaKerXx]

I did it this way: First 3OP, but then I found edge permutatition difficult for me, then stopped for a while due to exams, then started over with Old Pochmann once exams were over. Still not being able to get a successful BLD solve, I switched over to M2 and got one, finally after 8 months since my 1st try.

 

[cmhardw]

I learned to BLD solve by coming up with my own method after reading a brief explanation by Richard Carr at the time. It took me about a week to go from first interest in BLD to coming up with a workable method to first success. I switched to the cycles method after the 2003 WC, and to more standard methods.

If you just want to solve BLD then read Macky's cycle description. Using only that and one alg to cycle 3 edges, one alg to cycle 3 corners, one alg to flip 2 edges, and one alg to rotate 2 corners you can solve BLD. You can work up to the other, more advanced, methods later. Using a simplistic method such as this you could be solving BLD before you go to bed tonight.

Chris

 

[Stefan]

R2 is very slow

How slow?

 

[Toquinha1977]

Thanks for the great responses...Eric Limeback's tutorial sounds the most appealing, so I'm going to try that this week when time permits.

Regarding the "ivory tower"...it's mostly directed at intellectual elitist attitudes that don't do much for building community, but tend to come up whenever a question determined to be "stupid" comes up. This hasn't been the case here (and partly validated by responses from several veteran figures in the community, like Hardwick and Pochman). But, I'm here to learn BLD, or at least get started.