At my comp last weekend, I finally got a chance to compete in 7x7. It's the first time I've competed in something larger than 5x5, and the first time I've competed in an event where I had a shot to be in/near the top 100 in the world. My first two solves went well, and the centers of my third solve were fine also. But during edges of the last solve, the nerves, combined with the fact that I was using a black cube and I'm used to white ones, got to me. All of a sudden, I couldn't see anything, and was pausing for 5 seconds at a time and basically solving like someone who averages 5:30. Nerves have never done that to my cubing before. I was on pace for a low 3:50s average after the first two, but got a 4:22 on the last one all because of that breakdown during edges, and flopped and choked my way to a sup 4 average. I still won the event easily and am in the top 150 in the world for single and average, but I was bummed and pissed the rest of the day because of it. I dropped the average ~10 seconds and ~25 world rankings for no reason.
I post this here because this story seems like BLD in a nutshell. It's certainly more common than with big cubes. I think I understand a bit better why Ollie and company can't stand caring about their results, and have their entire comp ruined by a few DNFs. It must be even worse, having the disappointment happen so suddenly, right after you take off the blindfold. At least I had a couple minutes during edges to gradually come to the realization that I was screwing up. You all just have to wait and see.
