TPS and the brain

[DaveyCow]

I couldn't really find where to best post this so please put in the appropriate thread if necessary

Silkie's thread at http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?29266-What-are-the-best-methods-for-improving-TPS is relevant. I'm wondering what your opinions are on how TPS relates to age/mental abilitiy. I'm 37 and a 5 tps is do-able for me. For example, my F-perm (the one with T-perm in it) should be sub4 with a 5 tps, which seems very doable, but yet I ave a little over 4 with it. Now it seems to me a 15 yo would get sub 4 and even sub3 easily with this (say in 10 mins, at most, practice). So dexterity is not the issue as far as I can tell. What do you think the issue may be? Some psychological barrier that makes me have to be "safe" so that I don't mess it up or... ? I don't even know what the possibilities are I'm very happy to know that (mathematically) it's not finger dexterity. So I started wondering (in general, not just in regards ot my F-perm) what could be the psychological issue? I think maybe there's an element of "younger age = not as much inhibition mentally". But idk what are your thoughts?

 

[Username]

I did the F-perm you talked about in 1.47 (Not gonna reveal my exact age but it's around the 15 mark)

 

[DaveyCow]

I did the F-perm you talked about in 1.47 (Not gonna reveal my exact age but it's around the 15 mark)

and what do you think the "inhibitor" for someone my age is?

 

[Username]

and what do you think the "inhibitor" for someone my age is?

I actually don't know. It's a good question. My first thought was hand size, but that isn't really a good answer because there are many good cubers with big hands.

 

[tseitsei]

I think people tend to have better reactions and/or (finger)dexterity when they are younger... So young people will be able to turn faster more easily

 

[YddEd]

2.46 same F perm, 11 yo ( Then 2.18 and 2.55 picking it up)
What do you average? Maybe that could have something to do with how fast you do your algs. I used to just keep doing my PLL until it felt fast. Your fingertricks should also be good.

 

[cowabunga]

A 15yo learns faster because his brain is still developing, making him more adept in learning and training.
In your 30s the brain cells begin to die and your brain is filled with "stuff"...

 

[TheNextFeliks]

2.48. About 15 yo.

 

[kunparekh18]

Me too 15yo

 

[Wassili]

1.5 for me, 15 years old.

 

[mark49152]

and what do you think the "inhibitor" for someone my age is?

I'm a few years older than you and average ~34 with only slow improvement. Here's my thoughts on tps and age.

Fingers, eyes and brain all slow down with age. If you developed skills at a younger age, you have a better chance of sustaining them as you get older, whereas learning new skills at an older age is much harder.

Analyzing my own performance: My PLL execution during drills averages ~3.5 and my algs average 12.9 moves, so that's about 3.6tps. That's my peak tps during a solve. Maybe they will get faster with practice, but it took me a lot of drills to get to the speed I'm at, and improvement comes slowly. The algs are well embedded in muscle memory so there's no speed loss due to recall or unfamiliarity. Therefore I take this as a reasonable measure of my theoretical maximum tps for any part of a solve right now - i.e. what my fingers are capable of, provided my eyes and brain can keep up.

F2L (excluding cross) takes me ~17 seconds and typically 30-33 moves, so <2tps. Execution of F2L cases is pretty well locked into my muscle memory as well. If I could achieve 3.6tps to match my PLL speed, while retaining my current move efficiency, F2L would take me ~9 seconds. Ergo, during F2L I waste about 8 seconds on pauses, hesitations, searching, fumbling, or executing at slower than maximum tps. Conclusion: it's not just finger speed holding me back, it's eyes/brain as well. My eyes/brain cannot track or recognize pieces or coordinate finger responses fast enough to permit my fingers to go faster than 2tps during F2L, let alone reach their maximum 3.6tps.

My plan following that analysis was to focus on lookahead and aim to wipe 5 seconds off my F2L time, on the assumption that even if my fingers are old and slow, my brain is in pretty good shape - and guess what - it's really hard . My progress in learning to ignore the pieces being solved and find and track the next pair, is just as slow as my tps improvement through PLL drills - but I'm persevering with it on the basis that a "breakthrough" is more likely in the brain department than the finger department.

I would strongly recommend the Fastest Fingers Competition. This is a great way to assess the current limitations of your brain and fingers. For example, on my first entry:

• Initial solve was ~36 seconds. This was reasonably move-efficient and gave me nice OLL/PLL cases so I kept the same solution for the practice solves.
• After about 3-4 solves I was at ~20 seconds. At this point I'd practiced enough to know what was coming next, and eliminate most pauses. I wasn't really faster at any individual part of the solve, but almost half of my original solve time was revealed to be pauses or fumbles!
• After about 20 solves I got my PB of ~15 seconds. Now I not only knew what was coming, but had practiced the case sequence, transitions, AUFs and so on to get the overall solve as smooth and fast as my fingers would allow. Unrealistic for a perfect-lookahead first solve though. Note that the solve was 58 moves so this PB was about 3.6tps, my theoretical maximum tps from above.

Conclusion: Both tps and eyes/brain aspects of solving develop slowly for me, but eyes/brain is a much bigger factor than tps in holding back my overall average and therefore gives better potential for gains through practice. Regardless of whether my slow development is due to age, the fact it's slow means that focusing on areas with most potential is even more important.

Basically, lookahead is much more important than tps, especially if your development is slower due to age.

 

[TeddyKGB]

2.42 Avg of 12 on that F-perm and i'm 28...

 

[weirdesky]

Woo Teddy.
I'm curious what your guys's cubes are. Because I never broke 30 until I got a Dayan cube. And also how much you practice. I'm 20, average around 15, have been cubing for seven years, and solve at least 100 solves a day.

 

[Ninja Storm]

Woo Teddy.
I'm curious what your guys's cubes are. Because I never broke 30 until I got a Dayan cube. And also how much you practice. I'm 20, average around 15, have been cubing for seven years, and solve at least 100 solves a day.

I was hitting sub30 using a Rubik's brand back when I wasn't aware of speedcubes(before Dayan, though).

I don't practice a ton, but I can still average around 15 with a Rubik's brand nowadays.

 

[sneaklyfox]

F-perm was 1.90. And I'm 32.

But in my younger days I did a lot of violin and piano (I'd say semi-professional level) so my finger dexterity has been practiced. Maybe that's why I'm still able to move them fairly fast. Muscle development hasn't left me quite yet.

 

[Cubinguy]

0.99 on the F-perm and I'm 12

 

[speedcuber50]

A bit off topic I know, but what F-perm is it? I absolutely hate my current F-perm; it takes at least 5 seconds, whereas my PLL average is around 3 seconds. (BTW I turned 15 the other day.)

 

[Cubinguy]

A bit off topic I know, but what F-perm is it? I absolutely hate my current F-perm; it takes at least 5 seconds, whereas my PLL average is around 3 seconds. (BTW I turned 15 the other day.)

(R'U'F')T-Perm(FUR)

 

[KongShou]

1.15

15 yrs old

my cube keep locking up, stupid maru lube

 

[Schmidt]

R' U' F'.... Fastest time 2.00
R' U2 R' d' .... 2.50

age 41