Alex Lau 3x3 ER - 7.52

[scottishcuber]

No offense, but this reply is full of rambling excuses. And I'm glad a lot of cubers here agree with me in viewing your fear of cameras as absurd. You yourself called it an inanimate object. Well, that little inanimate object sure does have a huge control over your life. But the sad part is your unwillingness and reluctance to cope with your fear. That really is an indicator of mental weakness. You should never let a fear win. That goes for anything in life. You should look at it as an obstacle to overcome, not a challenge to avoid. But you've chosen to avoid it. And that's the sad part.

All the other major cubers: Feliks, Mats, etc etc, thrive under the pressure, embrace it, and come out on top. But not you. You let it get to you. You let it dictate your state of mind. And all because you've chosen to run away from your fear. Well, again, I find that truly sad. And I think...deep inside, you also realize how terrible it is to be a slave to such a fear. You will never publicly admit it of course. You would rather cling to a weird policy than ever admit to being dominated by a fear.

Regardless, you can do as you wish. Just remember:

"The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear." -Nelson Mandel
“Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.” -Jim Morrison
“Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

This is one of the worst, rudest and most unintelligent replies I've seen in this forum. So much so that I can't respond thoughtfully.

 

[Kirjava]

COWARD

 

[Ollie]

No offense, but this reply is full of rambling excuses. And I'm glad a lot of cubers here agree with me in viewing your fear of cameras as absurd. You yourself called it an inanimate object. Well, that little inanimate object sure does have a huge control over your life. But the sad part is your unwillingness and reluctance to cope with your fear. That really is an indicator of mental weakness. You should never let a fear win. That goes for anything in life. You should look at it as an obstacle to overcome, not a challenge to avoid. But you've chosen to avoid it. And that's the sad part.

All the other major cubers: Feliks, Mats, etc etc, thrive under the pressure, embrace it, and come out on top. But not you. You let it get to you. You let it dictate your state of mind. And all because you've chosen to run away from your fear. Well, again, I find that truly sad. And I think...deep inside, you also realize how terrible it is to be a slave to such a fear. You will never publicly admit it of course. You would rather cling to a weird policy than ever admit to being dominated by a fear.

Regardless, you can do as you wish. Just remember:

"The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear." -Nelson Mandel
“Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.” -Jim Morrison
“Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

I can't agree with any of that.

I'll agree it's rude, certainly not one of the rudest posts ever.

And unintelligent? He has an extreme opinion (which I don't automatically agree with by defending his post), I don't think that's unintelligent.

Arctic though, the personal attack is a bit full on.

And for worst I think many posters such as rj never formulate posts that well.

It's unintelligent in that he assumes that all the top cubers thrive on pressure when they most probably don't. He also assumes that Alex is 'scared' when really it could just be a case of psychology. There's something called Drive Theory that says people do better in the presence of an audience when the task is perceived to be easy, but not when the task is perceived to difficult by the performer such as getting a sub-ER average of 5. So in actual fact he did what was best for him and his overall performance by sitting further away. This is just sensible.

People also need to remember that the audience here is not just one person with their camera. It is often that Alex has 5 or 6 sets of parents watching in front of him and even more cubers watching eagerly all around his solving station, some with cameras. I had something similar during 3BLD, probably without as many people, but the audience factor is difficult to ignore sometimes.

And the general wording of the post is sanctimonious, unsympathetic (especially as by the looks of things he has never attended a competition) and overall very insulting. Copying and pasting quotes from Google added nothing to his points and made me a bit sick in my mouth.

 

[5BLD]

No offense,

Let's leave "offence" out of it, shall we?

And I'm glad a lot of cubers here agree with me in viewing your fear of cameras as absurd

Right. So if a majority is of a certain belief, does it make it a fact? Anyway please name those cubers you are referring to.

But the sad part is your unwillingness and reluctance to cope with your fear.

The sad part is you are simply trying to gain an upper hand now, by blowing my situation out of proportion, and then attacking it. Stop pretending I'm a story book character with crystal clear personal qualities. Believe it or not, I'm human too.

You should look at it as an obstacle to overcome, not a challenge to avoid.

How, then, do you think I got to this standard? By running away from challenges?

And I think...deep inside, you also realize how terrible it is to be a slave to such a fear.

I ain't no slave dude. What the hell are you on. Again, a quote would be nice.

You would rather cling to a weird policy than ever admit to being dominated by a fear

What, now, is my weird policy? Tell me how it's weird.

How dare you, Artic, trivialise my points as rambling and continue with that drivel. How dare you.

You really don't know the way I think. That's forgivable but don't you dare blabber on like it's fact. That's just utter disrespect, a term I hardly use because I am so goddamn humble.

We humans don't live in a story book world of fables where it's so simple. "slave to such a fear," my arse, if you don't mind me saying. Are you trying to undermine me? Be honest.

 

[Renslay]

Wow.
I am surprised by the amount of negativity in this thread.

I am so nervous all the time even by thinking about breaking my own record, and that is far from ER. Being nervous under pressure is one of the most basic human feelings, is it so hard to understand that? And that is not something you just throw out the window after you decided to.

I would like to congrats again Alex, and thanks for all the efforts and works you put there.

 

[KongShou]

Next time I'll just film in secret and there'll be no more argument.

 

[moralsh]

Wow, congrats Alex, Amazing achievement!

Do whatever you feel necessary to keep yourself wanting to go to more comps, and keep having fun.

That said, I'm an expert at filming without being noticed, if we ever go to the same comp you won't notice me , rest assured!

 

[kunparekh18]

Just like Alex is psychologically affected by cameras, I guess Artic is affected by the "unwillingness to accept what is right" thingy. To understand what Alex means go to a comp, nub.

 

[notfeliks]

As much as I would love to have footage of Alex's solves, it is his god damned choice. Instead of the absurd personal attacks, let's all (I know most of us have already, but how about all?) congratulate him on an awesome average.

Good job Alex, and I hope to see you further improve on this, cameras or not.

 

[applemobile]

I can't believe Alex won't even let people take X-rays of him whilst solving. How selfish.

 

[DeeDubb]

How is this not hyperbole? Why link me the definition? This is a miniscule hobby that occasionally garners media attention. If I was the best in the world at threading needles but didn't like getting recorded, does that inherently make threading needles an event with 'world stage performance', and the associated criticism here worthy of myself?

I don't want to get into splitting hairs over a definition, so we can just agree to disagree instead of chasing that red herring.

Anyway, I think I'm on the wrong side of things here, haha. Artic is being quite rude and really not accepting this his stance is pretty silly.

I will say though, I think Alex is a phenomenal solver, and I think the word "minuscule" diminishes his accomplishments and how much work goes into what he and many others have spent countless hours to become great at. If it wasn't something he was passionate about and put his heart into, he wouldn't be concerned about being filmed. I would rather Alex be comfortable to perform his best than see him on film struggling. My original comment was just poking fun a bit at him, I didn't intend for it to be a launching point for all this maliciousness and personal attacks on his psychy or whatever. It's totally natural to feel nerves. Just about everyone does.

 

[~Adam~]

I think it's a conspiracy. Alex is Artic and trying make us feel sorry for him so he doesn't have people filming him!!!

On as serious note why would anyone be that rude? On the internet or IRL? This is a relatively small community and if you want to be part of it don't be such a %#$€.

 

[god of rubic 2]

Congrats

 

[porkynator]

Congrats Alex, and thanks for the fantasy points
About that pressure thing, I suffered a lot during official 3BLD attempts until I got my first NR. After that it spontaneusly went away (not completely, my heart still beats twice as fast during an official 3BLD solve, but not as fast as before). Maybe this ER will be the same to you? Or you could just leave off the "maybe" and make it be so.
You can find some useful piece of advice in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i49Ix6i2ilE (thanks to Noah)

 

[Escher]

I will say though, I think Alex is a phenomenal solver, and I think the word "minuscule" diminishes his accomplishments and how much work goes into what he and many others have spent countless hours to become great at. If it wasn't something he was passionate about and put his heart into, he wouldn't be concerned about being filmed. I would rather Alex be comfortable to perform his best than see him on film struggling. My original comment was just poking fun a bit at him, I didn't intend for it to be a launching point for all this maliciousness and personal attacks on his psychy or whatever. It's totally natural to feel nerves. Just about everyone does.

Well, I used to have what was considered extremely good times back in the day (I'm only ~high 8 low 9 now) and was practising in sometimes 16-18 hour sessions, and for at least 8 hours a day. I purely meant minuscule for a sense of scale in terms of numbers, not accomplishment And I apologise, I was just infuriated last night about what Arctic had said since it touches on a few points personal to me. Glad Alex has put such a well-written defence out for himself.

 

[Faz]

All the other major cubers: Feliks, Mats, etc etc, thrive under the pressure, embrace it, and come out on top.

...no. I felt sick for most of Sunday at worlds, pressure really really sucks.

Congratulations Alex! I'm sure you've worked extremely hard for this, great to see it paying off. Hopefully you're going to Euros.
P.S. Thanks for the fantasy points

 

[Carrot]

Artic:

So, Alex lau, Feliks Zemdegs, Drew Brads and I are all saying pressure from extra cameras and small kids wanting you to break records is a big annoyance.

Ohhh wait, Aren't they also the only ones in this thread that has even performed at this high pressure? (Sorry Escher, but you never did REALLY good at competitions)

The problem is, if we allow others to film we will have a crowd of like 10+ people, if we don't allow people to film we will have 0 people filming. At smaller comps we want to break records because of the lack of pressure. (I hope above mentioned people shares my opinion, else I'll just delete this line)

Artic, I really doubt Alex is against having one person filming as long as he is not catching his attention. But that is just UNREALISTIC at his level.

 

[Yes We Can!]

I agree that cameras add a lot of pressure to solving, like so many have already said.
Especially when you are trying to get world class times, every split second counts, so you're trying to avoid all distractions. It often happens that people start filming me or make audible comments mid solve which is incredibly irritating and annoying.
Almost all top cubers can easily beat their official bests in a relaxed setting but in competitions there are so many external factors, and especially the notion of having several cameras pointed at you from a metre's distance is definitely not helping.

As for the pressure thing, I personally did use to thrive under pressure; I would almost always do better in competitions than at home. Now I certainly don't anymore. I find it very stressful.

Arctic: Doubt his strategies all you want but don't get rude. And seriously, accusing him to be a slave? Seriously?
To get with your great intellectuals' quotes theme:
"Don't criticize what you don't understand." -Bob Dylan

As for Jim Morrison—at the beginning of his career, he would only perform facing the band, standing with his back to the audience. Eventually he decided to turn around.
Leave it up to Alex to decide when or if he wants to turn around.

 

[Escher]

Ohhh wait, Aren't they also the only ones in this thread that has even performed at this high pressure? (Sorry Escher, but you never did REALLY good at competitions)

No I know, I'm very aware of that, I've never performed even close to the times I get in competition warm-up compared to recorded solves. Even races with other people get my heart rate going insane. Hence the stuff Artic is saying is infuriating, just because I invested so much time and never saw any results for it besides one lucky single simply due to psychological problems.

 

[Divineskulls]

~Rude stuff~

~disagreeing with you~

~disagreeing with you~

~disagreeing with you(with an awesome quote and true fact about Jim Morrison)~

+more people disagreeing with you...

tl;dr - Shut up, Arctic, *you're wrong.*