Noob trying to judge my progress

[Pokerizer]

Notice ive moved to a shen en f3 which cuts corners rather nicely but it keeps loosing up on me. I'm guessing I just need to re-lube it though but I think I'll still buy a Guhong

 

[CarlBrannen]

Cutting corners is faster than turning accurately.

It's funny, but I've noticed that the faster I'm going, the less noise I'm making with corner cutting.

 

[CarlBrannen]

I would say don't do this. The hardest part of f2l is ignoring all the yellow pieces. There is no point practicing something if it isn't the way you will do it in a solve anyway. Just practice on a normal cube slowly, and never start making a move untill you are certain about what you are going to do

Besides having a problem where I occasionally mistake yellow and white, I found the yellow cubies hard to ignore. I replaced the yellow side of the cube with black. This means I use a black cube and remove the yellow stickers. (By the way, I believe that such a cube is not legal for competition as one could feel the absence of a sticker. On the other hand, they do allow cubes that are missing most of their stickers.)

 

[Robert-Y]

I'm not advocating him to have a bad cube. I'm telling him that he shouldn't get a Dayan cube at his level. Having a good Rubik's brand cube or an intermediate cube is all he needs when he averages about a minute. If he has a bad Rubik's brand, he should try and make it a decent cube by breaking it in, sanding it, lubricating it, and modding it.

Why do this when he can already buy a better cube at a low price?

Also, it's better to develop finger tricks that have accuracy with them. Dayan cubes do not need one to have very accurate turning, so when someone starts cubing on, say, a Guhong, they'll be used to only having to turn as accurately as the Guhong needs. However, if one develops their finger tricks on a Rubik's brand, their turning will be much more accurate.

What is wrong with turning as accurately as the Guhong needs or any other decent cube for that matter? What advantage is there of turning even more accurately? Wouldn't he be wasting time in solves by not cutting corners?...

Rubik's brand cubes can be decent cubes, and at his level, it's all that he needs.

I guess so but I don't think there's any harm in buying a cheap and more decent cube to practise with.

 

[Kirjava]

I'm not advocating him to have a bad cube. I'm telling him that he shouldn't get a Dayan cube at his level.

Why not? Delaying picking up a good cube will just lead to him having to learn how to turn it later instead of now.

develops their finger tricks on a Rubik's brand, their turning will be much more accurate.

[citation needed]

 

[Kirjava]

I actually feel like using a rubik's brand for a long time damaged my style for a while.

Fingertricks I have learned to do now still cannot be done on a rubik's brand cube. Because I was unable to learn them on the bad cube, I had to find alternative slower ways to perform those moves, and it took me a while before I managed to switched to the better alternative.

 

[5BLD]

Using a bad cube for a long time, did, I believe encourage me to be more efficient as I couldn't turn very fast. I went for a more constant slowturning style, and now thanks to that I have few pauses in my solves. Although not as dramatic as kirjava apparantly had, I did have the disadvantage of, well not using good fingertricks. For me it wasn't as awful as he says it was- when I got a good cube I immediately found new fingertricks to do and began incorporating them into my solves.

My stuff about encouraging efficiency is rather wishy-washy, but this is how I believe it has benefited me. You can go tell me I'm wrong, as I could too and suggest other factors to other theories from personal experience.

 

[Kirjava]

Although not as dramatic as kirjava apparantly had, I did have the disadvantage of, well not using good fingertricks. For me it wasn't as awful as he says it was

You weren't forced to use a rubik's brand for years.

 

[applemobile]

M2 IS POSSIBLE AND EASY ON A RUBIK'S BRAND.

 

[5BLD]

Yes it is, I used to do it easily (when i was sub-15)

 

[MostEd]

Alex, imagine that with a dayan ealrier on you could have developed good finger tricks, and have beem way faster now....

I suffered, i made sure my friend didn't.

 

[5BLD]

I did see it as suffering, at the time. I don't see it as suffering at the time. I personally believe it helped my efficiency a lot.

If I was able to access good cubes back then, I think I would now be pretty much the same speed, only with better turn style, better fingertricks, reasonable cmll speed and um... Worse blockbuilding and LSE efficiency. Efficiency is harder to work on than fingertricks imo.

 

[Pokerizer]

Just ordered a Dayan zhanchi woot!