Sure, add me on skype. What do you think of my video?
As for motivation you reminded me of something I've had recently.
I'd get like a 9.0x avg5 or of whatever until I realise I'm doing well. Then the thought immediately hits me "if the next solve is **** then this average will suck". When I get this thought I begin to get worse and worse, with mid 10s, which enrage me.
With that rage I do even worse, and by the time i get 14s I'm furious and have no idea why I'm doing so badly. And a few minutes later i wonder why I got angry so easily.
Now I remind myself that it doesn't matter what the times are, the aim is to simply practice. Telling yourself "be calm" very rarely helps me.
With this philosophy I just got my first sub-10 avg100, whilst yesterday the feeling hit me a bit and made a sub-9.9 avg50 to 10.0x avg100. Today I reminded myself that it doesn't matter, and just practice, and there we go, easy peasy sub-10 avg100. Of course I could've gotten better but the feeling still hit me a bit. I had a high 8 avg5, 9.0x avg12 and 9.6 avg50.
Me thinks it is not philosophy, but psychology!
That doesn't work for me.... It only works, like... every few months. I'll get some randomly nice average of 12, and then i'm plateaued.
If I'm just focused on practicing, I don't get good times. In fact, I get terrible times because when I say "I'm focused on practicing," it's very different from when YOU say "I'm focused on practicing." I'm not really focused when I say that.
If you'd like to know, with a different method, I actually got a very nice F2L average of 12. 8.09, which is a PB, but doesn't count for anything because I was breaking the 15-second inspection limit on purpose. I've been around those times for a very long time though, which is annoying, and being annoyed is distracting too, like rage is distracting for you and me and most other cubers. Before every solve, I made sure to tell myself exactly what I need to do before every solve, because I forget a lot. Often times I literally just forget to think. So, I actually need to practice on specific things outside of timing, like things I actually need to work on, and then when I'm timing, I need to bring everything I've practiced that day together and focus on it for very short amounts of time, I think, which requires remining myself of everything I need to do before I actually start the solve, and also visualize and feel out what I'm going to do at the intro of the solve before I do it. And I actually told myself aloud to "calm down and THINK" before the solves, too.
It's kinda funny that I literally have to remind myself to think. Sometimes, even when I remind myself to think, I forget because I'm too focused on making an X-cross, so then I have this gynormous pause, and then I'm like, "Oh, poopy."
So, I don't think that was quite the right way to think when you said "if the next solve is **** then this average will suck." That moved the focus towards getting a good time and not towards the actual actions necessary for getting a good time. That's why I the main reason why I plateau a lot. I'm more worried about getting good times and not the actions necessary.
So, basically, I need to practice focusing. As for you, you're probably doing a better job of focusing, or maybe you're just an awesome cuber. But either way, focusing on what you need to do is necessary. That's probably what happens when you tell yourself to just practice.
But yeah, in conclusion, my focus is horrible.
Since that last F2L average was so successful, I'm gonna try something out for the next month or so. I'm going to focus solely on F2L in practice. I wanna try training just a few things at a time. Don't care about OH, BLD, or even LL. Just focusing on Cross and F2L.
Basically, I'm going to do four stages in my training: algorithm training, burst-speed execution solving, BLD-in-parts, and slow-solving. The focus of the first two is simply to get through the algorithms without lock-ups. The second is to stretch my brain out a bit and hopefully improve my visual-spacial intelligence. The last is, of course, to practice look ahead. I'm not doing any one of them for more than 20-25 minutes at a time. And I will always use the timer, because I need to learn not to be distracted by it. And also the finger stretches. Those will always be necessary. In the end, this is all meant for practicing focus.
Oh, and gratz on your sub-10 average of 100!
