This is kinda off topic, but Rama told me that when he was in his prime he didn't even practice cubing at all. He just practiced the contrabass. Because of the tightness of the strings he gained a lot of strength in his left hand.
I was just away at a camp for 3 weeks. I brought some of my cubes. When I was out there, there wasn't very much access to timers so I just did slow solves mostly. I didn't learn much in terms of new tricks, I mostly just got to recognise old cases faster.
When I got back, I timed and found that my times were about the same as when I left, just above the 30 barrier. I also noticed I turned slower throughout the solve. When I tried to go faster, it was much easier (LL) to recognise cases at a higher speed. In the past few hours, I did a Avg of 12 and set times under 30 without as much effort. I basically shaved an extra couple of seconds of my time by not trying so hard to shave down my time...
I thought I would be at the 30 barrier for much longer.
Really good thread. I was discussing this with Jostle a while back and I described it as "manually re-entering the cognitive phase". I thought this was a pretty cool way of interpreting it. Like at a certain point in order to improve we need to somehow kick ourselves back into unfamiliar ground to force us to relearn things. For example I went back into the cognitive phase when I used Fridrich for a month and then set a record average when I went back to Petrus.^_^ Similiar things could be switching mice hands to get better at Quake, or shooting free throws. Maybe even adjusting the tension of a cube and having to readjust to the tension.
Good article, thank you. I'm pretty sure that I've peaked myself. I've been cubing for a few years and any improvements I've made have been pretty marginal - compare my better competition averages between 2008 and now and it goes down pretty slowly (2008: 30.67, 2009: 24.71, 2010: 22.78, 2011: 21.00). The largest problem I can see is that I'm practicing without any specific type of focus. Even though I've pretty much had all my OLLs/PLLs for a couple years now, hitting sub20 consistently is a huge struggle. As it is, the bulk of my "practicing" is just doing beginning-to-end solves.
So for sure, I need to start doing the following
-Colour neutrality. Is it better to just pick a different side every time, or dedicate each practice session to a specific colour?
-Relearning PLLs for OH, reversed, upside down, etc.
-Metronome training to improve look ahead (probably the thing I need to improve the most)
I find as well that similar to how it says musicians find playing difficult exercises or trying to learn a new, more advanced piece can help make their playing better, I generally do an average a little bit faster after I've learnt a new algorithm or I've had a go at a more advanced BLD memory technique.. But maybe that's just me ;P.
Personally, I don't really agree with the metronome stuff. At least to get to the point where I am, aside from learning algs and stuff, pure practice worked fine. The way I always thought about it was that by practicing, you subconsciously gain a better understanding of how the pieces move and can predict and find things better, although I'd like to hear someone faster's opinion on that.
In my opinion, this does not apply to speedsolving. We don't make a conscious effort to type faster, but we do with cubes. And you can't fail and dnf like u can in ice skating.
In my opinion, this does not apply to speedsolving. We don't make a conscious effort to type faster, but we do with cubes. And you can't fail and dnf like u can in ice skating.
Cracking your head open on the ice constitutes as a DNF imo xP.
Uh yeah. Took a bit of a break from cubing over the summer due to a ton of work; get back to it a couple weeks ago and i'm down to 17-18 sec mark after just barely managing under 20 sec before. wtf went on there?
Sorry to bump this old thread, but I didn't want to start a new one when the subject matter is so close to what I want to say.
As a relatively new cuber, I've always heard people say how important it is to go slow and look ahead, but (I guess like a lot of new cubers) I wanted to go FAST, not slow! I don't have much time for cubing, so when I do get a chance, it's normally spent doing timed solves.
Occasionally I'd spent an hour doing some slower solves. 2 weeks ago, I dedicated a week to working on my F2L efficiency and cross planning, something I'd been meaning to do for ages. Not just an hour here and there - all my cubing was untimed.
Then something crazy happened. After not improving at all for around 6 weeks, I demolished every PB except single (although I came close to that too). The session average was over 2 seconds better than my PB Ao50 had been only 2 weeks previously! I'd never had a session with more than 1 sub-20 in it. This one had 7, all none-lucky (and only 2 sup-30s! ).
Anyway, here's my new PBs, and progress in the last fortnight (since spending a week doing slow solves only):
Personally, I believe that you can only become faster by doing slow practice, criticising your own methods, and looking for ways in which you can improve. Timed solves will make you more consistent but, because you don't have time to be analytical, you will always be restricted by the limits of your current (bad) habits and technique.
Sorry to bump this old thread, but I didn't want to start a new one when the subject matter is so close to what I want to say.
As a relatively new cuber, I've always heard people say how important it is to go slow and look ahead, but (I guess like a lot of new cubers) I wanted to go FAST, not slow! I don't have much time for cubing, so when I do get a chance, it's normally spent doing timed solves.
Occasionally I'd spent an hour doing some slower solves. 2 weeks ago, I dedicated a week to working on my F2L efficiency and cross planning, something I'd been meaning to do for ages. Not just an hour here and there - all my cubing was untimed.
Then something crazy happened. After not improving at all for around 6 weeks, I demolished every PB except single (although I came close to that too). The session average was over 2 seconds better than my PB Ao50 had been only 2 weeks previously! I'd never had a session with more than 1 sub-20 in it. This one had 7, all none-lucky (and only 2 sup-30s! ).
Anyway, here's my new PBs, and progress in the last fortnight (since spending a week doing slow solves only):
Personally, I believe that you can only become faster by doing slow practice, criticising your own methods, and looking for ways in which you can improve. Timed solves will make you more consistent but, because you don't have time to be analytical, you will always be restricted by the limits of your current (bad) habits and technique.
It is certainly a worthwhile bump, no need to apologize.
I hadn't come across that article until now, but it brings up a point I've always thought about. Anyone here know who Tim Farris is? He wrote a few good books, but basically he is always testing himself and trying to improve himself physically and mentally. He always tries to analyze anything he does to become better and better at it, and has done some pretty wild things that most people didn't believe was possible. I am a big fan and have believed in a lot of what he says long before I read his books.
To relate to cubing: I think focusing on certain things does help, but more so as you get faster. I think getting down to 20-30 seconds is something that you can do relatively quickly just by solving over and over. You naturally learn things from solving that can't really be described, and it is important. Once you hit a plateau, I think it is important to further analyze your solves. What part is taking the longest? How does it compare to others? Why is it taking so long? etc.
I had a barrier at 24 seconds for several months, which was a long time for me at the time. I think went through my solves and analyzed them, and realized that my movecount was significantly higher than most. So I went through every F2L case that came up, and looked up alternative ways. I think discovered that I was doing a lot of cases differently than normal, and that there were much better ways to do them. I reduced my F2L movecount from around 45 average, down to 35 within 2 weeks or so, and then broke the barrier I was at. My advice for people who are not under 20 seconds and have hit a barrier is to focus on move count. Instead of just solving, make the most of every situation. Solve each situation the best way possible, not just the way you're used to.
This can be applied to almost any puzzle, or almost anything in life that we do. Want to learn a language? Don't just get a book and start studying, create a plan so you can learn it faster. The method you chose will significantly affect how long it takes to learn the language.
That's probably because you haven't reached the plateau yet!
More personally, I've been wondering why my times have stopped improving... Also, the article was interesting as I did indeed experiance what they said about typing.
I learnt to type at around 30 WPM. After years of programming, I had hit 65 WPM and stopped improving. Recently I've been doing drills and stuff, which has improved it to about 70 under optimal conditions.
Hey Guys, there is one thing that I have noticed about my progress. I improve fairly quickly,but when I get to barrier I fail like a patzer and get stuck on it for 2 months.
It took me around a month to get to 29 seconds. BUT then I stayed at 29 for 2 weeks and then went to 22.
I stayed on 22 for 2 months until I broke sub 20.
I've been sub 20 for a week now and now I average 18.5 seconds(-1.5 seconds in a week????).
I need to practice something other than 3x3 now.
Hey Guys, there is one thing that I have noticed about my progress. I improve fairly quickly,but when I get to barrier I fail like a patzer and get stuck on it for 2 months.
It took me around a month to get to 29 seconds. BUT then I stayed at 29 for 2 weeks and then went to 22.
I stayed on 22 for 2 months until I broke sub 20.
I've been sub 20 for a week now and now I average 18.5 seconds(-1.5 seconds in a week????).
I need to practice something other than 3x3 now.
).
