Are your times faster while people are watching or not?

[Rook]

Hi all,

The other day, I decided to show off my cubing awesomeness at school (*Mumbling* 45 second solves are awesome for non cubers...). My science teacher, who's quite fascinated by the cube, asked me if I knew how to solve the cube, so I decided to demonstrate.

I took about a minute and a half :fp (twice as long as it normally takes, my friend was timing me) to solve it. Not that my class wasn't impressed, but the solve could've been faster. F2L seemed to take ages and I messed up the PLL twice :fp

I suppose it was just my nerves; I get nervous when in the spotlight

anyway, I thought it might be a good discussion question. Do you perform better alone (in front of your timer, for example) or when people (be it 1 person or 100) are watching you? Or maybe it doesn't affect you at all?

~Rook

 

[DavidSanders]

Exact same thing happened happened with my science teacher. It was a really slow solve, but it was also with a crappy cube.
I have found that I do worse in front of people, so sometimes I get my mom to watch during practice, in order to ease my nervousness in future situations.

 

[rob558]

i actually do better in front of people for some reason

 

[IamWEB]

anyway, I thought it might be a good discussion question. Do you perform better alone or when people are watching you? Or maybe it doesn't affect you at all?

~Rook

I would assume most people would be affected, but what do I know? o_O

 

[HumungousLake]

yes i tend to get nervous in front of people. Even though my friends are speedcubers my palms often get sweaty. I guess it is because I am the fastest out of my friends and I don't want to seem bad. idk. I will take Davids advice and start cubing in front of people.

 

[Andreaillest]

Definitely slower. I get nervous.

 

[TioMario]

i'm way slower, yeah.
But actually, the fact of solving a Rubik's cube itself is impressive for most of the people.
I was once on the bus, playing with my cube, and a guy who was sitting next to me said: "that's a miracle !!!, how did you do that??" (and my times are like one minute and something =P)

 

[V-te]

Always slow. The thing is, If i have a computer in front of me, and a timer, I do the same, no matter how many people are watching.

 

[Daniel Wu]

Doesn't make too much of a difference. I got a 11.23 on a cube in school the other day.

 

[Cyrus C.]

Hmmm... I used a horrible unlubricated store bought and got a 23 second time, 2 seconds below average.

 

[(R)]

I do a little worse, but Today on the bus timing w/ my ipod i got a new pb by two seconds

 

[dannyz0r]

The nervous twitch I get actually makes me a little faster.

 

[Edward]

Im about 2 seconds slower than average. Im fixing this by always bringing my cube in public.

 

[Edmund]

If they stfu and don't tell me they sticker peel half way through my F2L. My execution always seems faster because I feel pressure and a lot of times that leads me to misinsert a lot I guess.
Tip: Never tell people I average 16 (which I do) right before a solve. It makes nervous feeling you have to live up to that and if you get an off solve they call you a liar.

 

[cmhardw]

It depends on the event. In blindfolded solving I tend to do better in competition, so under pressure and with people watching me. However, for speedsolving I usually do better at home with no pressure. This isn't always the case for me, but it tends to be a good rule of thumb.

Chris

 

[AREScuber]

for some reason i get lucky only when people are watching but not in competitions. out of the 50 solves that i have gotten in all cubes i have not gotten lucky.

 

[cmhardw]

for some reason i get lucky only when people are watching but not in competitions. out of the 50 solves that i have gotten in all cubes i have not gotten lucky.

If you're referring only to OLL or PLL skips then the chance of doing 50 solves and getting no kind of skip is:

[(215/216)*(71/72)]^50 = 39.4% chance

Just do more solves in competition and you'll eventually get one. Doing that many solves without any kind of skip has a roughly 40% chance to occure, so that's not unusual at all.

Chris

 

[AREScuber]

it is still below the average.

 

[endless_akatsuki]

Slower. takes like 16-18 seconds instead of 14-16.

 

[TheMachanga]

My cube locks up ALOT when people watch.