Barely Getting Started

[phil]

Hello speedsolving.com!

My name is Phil. I was referenced to this site yesterday by my friend's brother, and I thought I'd introduce myself. My experience with the cube has been fairly limited compared to some I've seen while browsing the forums, and I have only recently become interested in speed-cubing.

My Cubing History:
I started cubing back in October of 2008 when my gf bought me a cube for my birthday. I started off with Dan Brown, who talked me through my first solve (10/30/2008). After I got the algorithms down I started solving it all the time, but my hands eventually got tired from using my ring finger to do the D and D' moves. Eventually I realized that I could just flip the cube over and invert, but not before I was averaging ~1:30 with that method.

My Speed-Cubing History:
Sometime about a month and a half ago I discovered the Fridrich method, thanks to badmephisto. F2L was at first very confusing. I haven't taken the time to "optimize" my algorithms, but I'm happy with my progress so far. Because I'm lazy I still use a 2-look OLL and PLL (thanks to badmephisto again) and just set a new pb on cubetimer with a 0:54.69 solve on my new DIY cube from cube4you.com (average of 1:11.21)

I absolutely loathe U' and d

Thanks for the helpful forums, everyone!

~pHIL

 

[Divin3]

Welcome to the forums and good luck progressing through your times.

 

[mcciff2112]

badmephisto's 2 look olls and plls really helped me. next step is to learn full friedrich. dont worry if it takes a while, im still trying too

 

[cmhardw]

Hi Phil!

Welcome to your new addiction! Also welcome to the forum! Congratulations on your sub-60 second record solve and hope you're enjoying cubing! The community here is great, and try to get to a competition as soon as you can if one is near to you. You'd be surprised at how friendly they are, and how nice people are when meeting in person in this community.

Hope to see you on the forums!

Chris

 

[EmersonHerrmann]

Welcome! Everyone here will help you all the way to sub-10! Then you're on your own

P.S. - Why do you loathe U'? it's the easiest move of all o_O

 

[Tetris Cube]

I say the easiest move is R IMO. I don't like reaching for U' because I keep my index finger on the top left middle edge.

Welcome!

 

[Sir E Brum]

Hell Phil. Start practicing the odd moves now, you will probably need them later anyway. I was lucky enough to be left-handed, so I actually used my left hand for some moves and what do you know, there are quite a few OLL algs with lots of nice L moves in there.

 

[Ellis]

Hell Phil.

AHHH

Welcome phil. Nice improvements since october, it took me much longer to get where you are. And what day is your bday, the 24th by any chance?

 

[bamman1108]

Your progress is almost exactly like mine.

Before you learn PLL and OLL, try learning about some new methods.

Badmephisto teaches fridrich, which is the most used method, and hold the World Record currently.

The roux and petrus methods are more intuitive, use less algorithms, and focus on building different size blocks.

ZZ is a less known (until recently) method, but I recomment using another method before attempting this one.

 

[phil]

@Ellis: actually my birthday is the 29th

as for U', the tension on the cube I have now is a little too tight, so it often catches after a R' move. I've been looking for alternate algorithms so I don't have that problem, but it just seems to come up everywhere! I think if I were to practice those moves more it wouldn't be a problem, but being right-handed I don't spend a lot of time working on left-hand moves

thanks for the welcome!

 

[teller]

Welcome!

My $0.02 is that Fridrich is a blast, and F2L especially has no end of depth--you master one aspect and then you start seeing others things. You get bored with one aspect and you discover a short-cut. I don't know if I'll ever get to the bottom of it. Talk about cheap entertainment!

 

[byu]

Hi Phil, I would start by improving F2L now, and maybe learn 1-look PLL.

 

[abr71310]

Congrats phil on your PB! -- I remember when I first got my sub-60 times, and I was thrilled just as much as you were (hopefully! XD) -- I was using a crappy LBL method I picked up from a bunch of friends before discovering Dan Knights, but I've been using Fridrich probably for as long as you have.

GO BREAK SUB-60 (averages)!!! (Man, you have sick cubes. I wish I had sick cubes. )

 

[It3ration]

Hey Phil, this is Kevin. Welcome to cubing.

The technique I use for speedcubing is a Fridrich-Ryan Heise hybrid. For FM (fewest moves solving) I use full Ryan Heise.

Here's a link to his site:

http://www.ryanheise.com/cube/heise_method.html

Drop me a line sometime.

woot