Do you get angry/self-frustrated while cubing? why not?

Do you...

  • Total voters
    176
5BLD

5BLD

Legend
Joined
Apr 14, 2011
Messages
3,178
Location
England
WCA ID
2011LAUA01
YouTube
Visit Channel
Please vote in either 1 or 2, AND either 3 or 4.

Do you continue and try to calm or just take a long break and hope you don't continue to suck?

I'd just like to see if you get angry while cubing and by how much, because lately i have gotten very self-frustrated easily. It is weird because when I am frustrated, I know I need to calm down but I can't. I've found the cause of extreme anger in a short period of time is when I find myself not concentrating on the cube, but on mental chatter (don't tell me I am mad... everyone has this, don't lie). I find my mind wandering, and get irritated at myself for doing it. The more I try to stop the mental thingies, the more I start mentally chatting about trying to stop mentally chatting. Meditation works, but when I am frustrated I feel it is a waste of time to do so.

Don't dismiss my question as, "pah, you just need to learn to control your emotions" because everyone knows that it is not as easy as that. If to you it is, elaborate. Please don't say "cubing is for fun" etc etc, because, frankly, I know it is, but since we are pushing boundaries we are bound to hit some point of frustration. The main thing with me though is that I get worse when I'm angry, so it becomes a cycle until I somehow calm down again. In fact I am not good whenever I am other than calm and not thinking about anything.

If this seems like a useless topic to you, report the post and stuff and I'm sure the mods will be eager to remove it as quickly as possible.
(nb: a wee bit o' sarcasm; if its too much visitor message me and ill remove)
 
Last edited:
Although I don't get angry while cubing, I find it difficult to solve while angry at other things, so I went for 'When you get angry you stop'

On the subject of mental wandering, I actually find it to be a big help while cubing. Especially during megaminx, I find that I can over focus and slow down by trying to find everything and not solving properly. Maybe you could see if there is any events in which this helps you, and change to that if it starts up, then go back to 3x3 after it calms down a bit, or you re-focus.
 
I definitely do get frustrated, and usually I'll walk away from it for a little while when this happens. Pushing the boundary is difficult, but at the bleeding edge I expect a certain amount of failure and this isn't usually what sets me off. It's when I can't even hit my "normal" level of performance. I don't just have an "off day," I find that my performance is completely unpredictable sometimes. Currently, I have made a project out of certain dietary changes that support brain health, along with some other wacky things designed to make my cubing feel 20 years younger. We'll see...
 
oh yes i rage alright, i live on rage and caffeine, usually when i suck at something like my 3x3, i just keep going and see if i can get better times with the rage, if not and i'm on the verge of destroying my cube i switch to another puzzle/event and try that as a calm down yet keeping the adrenaline which usually leads me to breaking PB's. Sometimes i find anger helps because i switch to OH since it's one of my favourite events i just keep getting faster at it that i'm getting close to my two handed times (although at the moment my OH sucks and im now wrecking my 4-5BLD times).
 
I'm ok when cubing, I just put it down and do something else. On Xbox I'm a different animal though, I start team killing, nade spamming and host dropping. I think the difference is that when cubing it only effects me, so I have no benefit from getting irritated. On Xbox i can ruin everyone else's time, and that makes me feel better.
 
Ooh some very different replies... Interesting. Yeah MLSTRM, I see how it'd work for mega, but for 3x3 for me I find because its so fast paced a clear focused mind is better than a wandering mind... Especially because a few seconds the mind won't go far anyway.

Callum, anger fuels you? That'd nver work for roux lol, efficiency would become non existent and for me I'd constantly pop my cube...

Yeah, teller I also get angry when not hitting my normal standard. Like when I can't even get sub-8. I find the huge drawback is not analysing solves but rather spending the time being angry and quite literally hoping the next will be good, with fear or becoming more angry if that makes sense.
 
Last edited:
5BLD said:
Ooh some very different replies... Interesting. Yeah MLSTRM, I see how it'd work for mega, but for 3x3 for me I find because its so fast paced a clear focused mind is better than a wandering mind... Especially because a few seconds the mind won't go far anyway.

Callum, anger fuels you? That'd nver work for roux lol, efficiency would become non existent and for me I'd constantly pop my cube...
Click to expand...

Yeah, I was thinking that the faster the event, the more focus you need. Maybe you should try doing some other events to clear your mind between 3x3 solves?
 
MaeLSTRoM said:
Yeah, I was thinking that the faster the event, the more focus you need. Maybe you should try doing some other events to clear your mind between 3x3 solves?
Click to expand...

Yes I was thinking of that (well I was thinking of that after reading these posts!).
In fact I was thinking about a comp environment, and began to wonder if performance could be lowered at home by simply doing so many timed solves in a row without having that break where you have time to clear your mind. The sensation really is a 'building up' sensation of thickness and frustration with it of the mind.

To 'release' anger. Good or bad? Like punching things or shouting. I think bad, because although you feel relief you still feel it ringing inside. For the latter, i never do.
 
5BLD said:
To 'release' anger. Good or bad? Like punching things or shouting. I think bad, because although you feel relief you still feel it ringing inside. For the latter, i never do because my parents don't like it.
Click to expand...

I used to shout when I got frustrated, until my parents got pretty damn annoyed by it. It does work quite well I must say. But I digress: releasing your anger is good when it doesn't affect anybody around you really.
 
5BLD said:
Callum, anger fuels you? That'd nver work for roux lol, efficiency would become non existent and for me I'd constantly pop my cube...
Click to expand...

well i've given up learning roux for now, even with the tutorials and stuff, averaging 1:20 i does not like. i find that when i've had a boring day my times for 3x3 go up to about 18.5, on a good day about 18 but when i get stressed i instantly rage and i hit sub 17's, probably why i had bad times at WSMO for both 3x3 and OH. as for my cube you would be DISGUSTED! i actually prefer my cube unclean and tacky because i can control what i do and feels the cube better instead of what happened when i did clean it and lube i (fell apart, too fast and loose, very bad times, near fist through laptop, etc)
 
Endgame said:
I used to shout when I got frustrated, until my parents got pretty damn annoyed by it. It does work quite well I must say. But I digress: releasing your anger is good when it doesn't affect anybody around you really.
Click to expand...

Are you ok? I sense consideration for others somehow in this post...

More seriously, hm. I am not sure if it is good psychologically to release anger. Though the term "release anger" can seem attractive its all in the mind, and possibly releasing anger releases chemicals related to fight or flight stuff in the olden times, still keeping the anger in the background, hammering it in almost.

Of course half of what I just said is nonsense however I hope you see where I'm coming from. I am very unsure which way is better though psychologically. I will look it up but i feel it is hard to test scientifically... And I will have to check reliability of tests.
 
emolover said:
I do not get mad anymore when I cube. The only time I would get angry from cubing was back when I lied about my times and pretended to be faster than I really was.
Click to expand...

Very honest of you to say that. I never lied about my times, however that last sentence especially got me thinking. I do expect a little faster than me 'normal' cubing rate of myself. I expect to get on the 'good end' of my range, not towards the middle-end... And so the thinking starts....
 
5BLD said:
Very honest of you to say that. I never lied about my times, however that last sentence especially got me thinking. I do expect a little faster than me 'normal' cubing rate of myself. I expect to get on the 'good end' of my range, not towards the middle-end... And so the thinking starts....
Click to expand...

I do this to myself way too often. More often than not, I go into a session with the thoughts of, "my PB avg50 is x, therefore this session should average about x". Doesn't go over very well most of the time.
 
I don't get mad when I cube and I am not the kind of person that cubes just for fun. I am very competitive and having a 14-15 second average makes me a little sad when I compare myself to others but whenever I do worse I just try to accept that there are bad days and I think in terms of where I will be in the long term if I continue to practice rather than the current average of 100 or whatever. So that kind of helps, ignoring the present and thinking about where I will be. Because the road to mastery is often frustrating. Also I think of this quote by Muhammad Ali "I hated every minute of training, but I said, 'Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'"
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

A
Things that make you angry while cubing.
2
Replies
29
Views
1,977
viviannguyen380
V
Swagrid
Dylan Miller gets quite angry
2
Replies
31
Views
3,792
precompsubwr
precompsubwr
bulkocuber
Bulkocuber's progression | angry face
6 7 8
Replies
141
Views
14,482
Jorian Meeuse
J
P
Solving the cube with angry ants
Replies
3
Views
694
Ordway Persyn
Ordway Persyn
virginia
make an angry rant (game)
Replies
9
Views
1,278
Hazel
Hazel
Back
Top