Any tips for remembering algorithms?

[brickinapresent]

I find it very difficult to memorize new algs, are there any ways I can make it easier?

 

[sDLfj]

One thing you can do is look for triggers, which are small sections of easily rememberable moves. For example, a Y perm is F (R U' R' U') (R U R') F' (R U R' U') (R' F R F'), all of the sections in parenthesis are sets of moves that should be already known. When I learn algorithms I will perform it over and over again for a half hour until it is ingrained in my muscle memory. Then, I'll practice it a few times with trainers. If I'm learning others I'll move onto those and come back to the first one later. I always memorize the first few moves for a particular case and then just let muscle memory take over to solve it.

 

[brickinapresent]

One thing you can do is look for triggers, which are small sections of easily rememberable moves. For example, a Y perm is F (R U' R' U') (R U R') F' (R U R' U') (R' F R F'), all of the sections in parenthesis are sets of moves that should be already known. When I learn algorithms I will perform it over and over again for a half hour until it is ingrained in my muscle memory. Then, I'll practice it a few times with trainers. If I'm learning others I'll move onto those and come back to the first one later. I always memorize the first few moves for a particular case and then just let muscle memory take over to solve it.

Thank you! I will definitely try that

 

[OreKehStrah]

I find it very difficult to memorize new algs, are there any ways I can make it easier?

Look for key pieces or blocks that are moving around or getting made/broken.

For example, pick the normal T perm alg people use: R U R' U' R' F R2 U' R' U' R U R' F'

(R U R' U' R' F) - Takes the FR pair out, then hides it in the bottom
(R2 U' R' U') - Moves the FL pair to FR spot then a U'
(R U R' F') - Moves the FL pair back to where it goes and restores the F2L

Things like that make learning algs a lot easier

 

[maybenoobcuber]

you can also write the algorithms down on a notebook, and look at the notebook several times a day when you are cubing, and someday, you would memorize it! writing anything down helps us get more used to the algs. It's like memorizing a new word every day.

 

[Kaedenthecuber]

learn a few at one go, take your time to get used to them, then learn more, and get used to them too before learning even more and repeating the cycle

 

[OldSwiss]

It will get easier the more algs you learn. I probably learned one Alg a Week with 2 Step OLL and PLL, maybe 2 a week with Full PLL and maybe one a day when I learned Full OLL.
For Ortega on the 2x2 i've learned around 10 on one day.

What helped me most was to group it into triggers like Sexy (R U R' U'), Foxy (R U R' F'), Sledge (R' F R F'), ReverseSexy (U R U' R'), Sune (R U R‘ U R U2 R‘) ...
Lots of algs are quite similiar and the more you know, you can remember one because its almost the same like an other.

Also there are the mirrored Versions of most of them what makes it easier to learn them at the beginning.
I've learned most of the OLL and PLL mirrored to the left. That is good at the beginning, but now when I try to learn OneHanded I also see the disadvantages, because lefty moves are quite awkward OH.
But now I am faster in learning new variants and can learn better versions for OH. So i would still recommend it if you are aware of this disadvantage

If you have a GAN Smartcube you could use the "alg trainer". This is really cool. It shows you the algorithm step by step on the screen and you can follow it until you have it in your muscle memory. It also measures your time to execute it and you can practice it until you feel fast enough.

 

[povlhp]

Breaking them down in small sections/pieces helped me a lot. Sometimes I had to redo my splitting of the alg.

Now with several thousand solves, I just repeat the alg, and get muscle memory. All algs will, when repeated, solve the cube again in 2-8 repeats of the same algorithm.

For 4 LLL it is easy. You will meet the algs pretty often innormal solves.

Now with many more algs (1-look OLL/PLL/CMLL), the problem for me is more remembering which alg to use for a specific case. There are 21 PLL cases, 57 OLL cases. Or if using Roux the 42 CMLL cases.

When you add more, the likelyhood of hitting the new ones goes down.

You can use an alg trainer, with a smartcube if you have. If you don't that is fine as well. A website like https://briefcubing.com/ allows you to pick the cases you want to practice. It will show a huge cube on screen, you execute the PLL / OLL / CMLL for the situation, and verifies that the first 2 layers are NOT mixed up, and that you have all yellow on top. Then assume you did well, and press space for the next case. Don't look at the cube for the case, just to verify you did not complete mis-execute.

If you scramble the cube instead of keeping yellow up and F2L fine, then resolve the cube and start over with practice.

It is OK the have the cheat sheet printed out in the beginning, and after a mis execution, you should look and redo a slow execution while looking, trying to rmemeber what went wrong.

 

[NigelTheCuber]

What I do when learning 2x2 algs is to find triggers like F R' F' R, R U R', R U' R', R2 U R2, and figure how those affect the pieces on the cube, then just start spamming it over until it is fully in my muscle memory

On 2x2 it is mostly one looking so I do not need a trainer, but for 3x3 algs it is best to use jperm.net or stuff like that to train the algs I learnt

 

[F'prime]

I would recommend looking at the cube while learning and doing the alg because you can easily know how to start it and how to end it.

 

[ProStar]

Start by breaking algs down into different triggers and following the alg and what it does to the cube, as previously mentioned. Then, my biggest advice is that the more you learn algs, the easier learning algs becomes. You can start finding similarities between algs and common moves/triggers, plus you’re just more familiar with the process of learning them. It may take you a few days to learn a singular alg right now, but by the time you finish OLL or move onto further sets, it’ll be significantly easier

 

[Jennah]

A great way is to not cram too many algs in your brain at one time, because you will probably forget them soon after.I think the best way is to learn 1-2 algs a day and really get the fingertricks down in your muscle memory. Also, you could take the advice of many cubers on youtube (I got this advice from J Perm) by following the pieces as you do the alg slowly (Ex: R U R' to take out a pair) so instead of memorizing a sequence of letters, you are memorizing how the pieces move.