Breaking sub-30 on 3x3

[MM99]

Your f2l can easily be improved don't go too crazy into the algs so soon work on your fundamentals like cross and f2l and you'll easily be sub 30

 

[Ordway Persyn]

wow you can do an N2 perm in 0.00 seconds!
Jk but anyway your algs are slow just preform your algs and get them sub 4-5. also do a lot of solves.

 

[biscuit]

What I did is have a 36 hour car ride with nothing else to do... it dropped my time a lot

 

[michaelcmelton]

Breaking the Sub-30 barrier

I am a 30 to 40 second solver, doing intuitive F2L, 2-look OLL and Full PLL. I've been struggling to break this barrier, and I don't know why. Any cubers with more experience than myself that would give me advice, would be appreciated. I realize that this could be simply solved with practice but I've been stuck here at almost 1 1/2 months now, and I want to be sub 30 for US Nationals. I occassionally will have between 25- 30 second singles, but my averages always land in the mid to upper 30 second range.

Thanks so much.

 

[Randomno]

Work on doing F2L pairs blindfolded.

 

[Ollie]

this is a thread

 

[PenguinsDontFly]

Turn very slowly. Use a metronome and get 3 TPS (180 BPM on metronome) into your head. Whenever I get stuck, I drop my turning speed. This makes me temporarily slower, but trains look-ahead and makes you much faster. I was stuck at mid 11 ish and practised slow turning for 2 weeks, getting 12 ish averages, and just today, I started turning normally and broke sub 11. So overall (tl;dr), practise slow turning and lookahead to decrease pauses.

 

[~Adam~]

Breaking the Sub-30 barrier

By turning relatively slowly and without pausing you can fairly easily get sub 12 sec F2L. Closing your eyes and solving pairs helps greatly to give you the confidence to not look at what you are currently solving so you can look ahead.

Drill your PLL and maybe start learning some more OLLs. Lots of them are short and/variations on algs you may already know.

 

[pkvk9122]

There are a number of good threads out there for helping sub 20, let alone 30. First steps are as you mentioned yourself practise practise practise. After that you should start learning full OLL and getting you're F2L up to scratch. It would help if you gave us a breakdown of your solves (e.g. cross 2 seconds, f2l 8 seconds, oll 3 seconds, pll 3 seconds), or even better record and give us a video of a couple of your solves. Other than that all we can do is give you basic advice.

 

[PJKCuber]

All of the above

 

[AlphaSheep]

I was stuck at just over 30 for a couple of months. I got frustrated, so I practised other stuff like big cubes and one handed for a month or so. When I came back to 3x3, my times dropped quickly. I think it's because the things I was doing force you to turn slowly, so I was inadvertently taking the advice everyone usually gives.

 

[DeeDubb]

I think there should be a rule about asking for advice. If you have such a vague question, you should post a video of you solving. That's the only way that there's any chance to actually get some constructive feedback. You might be doing some simple thing wrong that could totally change your times, but there's no way for us to help if you just say "I want to be sub-xx". The advice is always the same "work on f2l" "practice" "do you know blah blah LL algorithms? learn them".

However, if we see a video of your solves we can possibly pinpoint exactly where you need help.

 

[michaelcmelton]

I'll have an average of five video up later today.

 

[michaelcmelton]

Here's my Ao5 from just a few minutes ago.

 

[jms]

Your hands are off the screen half of the time.

 

[michaelcmelton]

I put a new Ao5 in its place.

 

[theROUXbiksCube]

Stop using WCA inspection and only like 4 seconds of that, fully plan out all moves of your cross and maybe track a pair if you can plan your whole cross.

 

[obelisk477]

Learn to double flick

 

[JeffDelucia]

Your cross is really slow, practice coming up with more efficient solutions, even if you use a minute of inspection. Watch videos on advanced cross building, and probably some example solves. To me that was the most obvious area you could improve. Your turn speed is definitely a limiting factor also, you've just got to practice for that.

 

[molarmanful]

Hmm... This one's sorta strange for me. I never really had this problem; I had a 35 sec average one day, then 25 the next day.

TURNING
Very important. You don't seem to turn very fast. During F2L, this is fine, but your turning isn't exactly on point -- especially during your LL. Find more comfortable finger tricks if you have to, and replace any uncomfortable algs with alternatives that you find on the Internet. If you can't turn faster (no matter how much you try), then I'd just go for efficiency (like Tony Snyder -- search him up). CFOP is not the most efficient method out there, so if you are going for efficiency, try other methods. Otherwise, try alternative algs and finger tricks. Oh yeah, and learn to double-flick with both hands.

CROSS
Okay, you really need to work on this part because you're around 8-10 seconds when you should be around 5 seconds. You don't need to go for optimal solutions, but you have to have an idea of what you're doing, even if it's very faint. This means using your inspection wisely to find all 4 cross pieces. In addition, because this step is intuitive, you can make it as comfortable as you want. Try to make the cross solution simple, even if it's not efficient. Efficiency comes naturally.

F2L
I think you have a problem with intuition -- that is, you probably force yourself to think too much during cross and F2L. In the cross, you can't really eliminate intuition entirely, but during F2L, it can be partly eliminated: by learning algorithmic F2L. Most cubers will hate me for recommending this, but I can see that you turn faster whenever you perform algorithms. Try learning algorithmic F2L -- it might just help you.
Lookahead is not required to get you around 25 seconds, so you don't need to use it too much -- at least for now. Pausing is okay (as long as it's not too long), but you have to make up for it with faster turning speed.

OLL and PLL
All TPS and recognition. I notice that you have trouble with PLL recognition. If you don't already, look for obvious blocks, opposite colors, headlights, etc. I have a recognition guide and algorithms here: http://www.molarmanful.com/pll
You really don't need to know full PLL or even 2-Look OLL to get to 25 seconds. I have a friend who is around 23 seconds, and he knows 4 out of 7 2-look OLLs and barely any PLL's. However, he turns amazingly fast and is pretty good at F2L, so that's probably why he is at 23 seconds. I have another friend who is very much like you: he's stuck at around 35 seconds, he knows Cross, intuitive F2L, 2-look OLL, and full PLL; but his turning isn't exactly fast, and his finger tricks aren't too good either.
But just get fast with the algorithms that you know, or learn alternative algs as I said before.
---

Overall (at least in your case), try to turn faster. Efficiency is not needed unless you can't turn faster. You basically have all the tools you need to get under 25 or even under 20 seconds, but you have to improve those tools. Hope this helped. Good luck in your endeavours!