CadenTheCuber’s progression thread (grinding for sub 20)

[Caden Fisher]

Hello, I’m Caden Fisher, or CadenTheCuber. I average around 24-25 seconds on 3x3 right now. I’m hoping to hit sub 20 in the next couple of months. I’ll update this thread when I hit a milestone or just do a bunch of solves. I know full Pll and I’m learning full Oll. If anyone has tips for improvement please leave them here. Thanks

 

[Caden Fisher]

I just filmed this ao5. If someone could watch and note some things that I could improve, that would be great. Thanks

25.16 ao5

 

[bulkocuber]

I just filmed this ao5. If someone could watch and note some things that I could improve, that would be great. Thanks

25.16 ao5

You're lucky, you have a lot of things to improve and bad habits to quit.

- improve your turning. This problem is also related to your rough turning style. You have an aggressive turning style, thus you lock up a lot; you should do some slow solves just focusing on not locking up, then each of the next solves try to gradually increase the turning speed while still making sure you don't lock up (note that in this case by slow solve I mean a normal solve but with slow turning, and I'm not saying anything about look ahead, which is too advanced for you now IMO). In addition to this you should drill your LL algs to make them more consistent; for instance, when I execute a T perm at a controlled speed I can do it in ~1 second, but if I try to do it as fast I as can, I'll either get a 0.8 or get a 1.8 because of lock ups. Obviously you have to turn fast, but not too fast for you to control it.
If you can remove lock ups from your solves, you can shave at least 1 second off.

- reduce regrips. This refers to both F2L and LL. Every time you regrip your thumb to the bottom during F2L, you're wasting time unnecessarily, for example when you're doing R U R' or R U2 R' or R U' R' you shouldn't regrip your thump. Same thing for last layer algs (such as T perm and N perms): don't regrip at the beginning of the alg, even though sometimes it's just a soft regrip, and don't regrip in the middle: there are a lot of videos about PLL fingertricks, you just have to look for one of them and see how you should execute your PLLs and OLLs.
Each regrip takes more than one move, so you can shave off a second at least (I think..) by avoiding them

- plan the entire cross in inspection. In some solves you did it, but not in all the solves. Also, do it efficiently, trying to do it in less than
8 moves always.

- don't do unnecessary rotations in F2L. There's one simple trick you have to remember: when you're solving an F2L case where the edge lines up with the right or left center (If it is oriented), you don't need to do any rotation; if it lines up with the front or back center (If it is not oriented) then you might need to do one rotation (at most). This is not something you should work on when you do timed solves: you should work on this especially doing untimed solves where you have plenty of time to think about it. If you do more than one rotations to solve a certain case, look up for a way to solve it rotationless or with only one rotation. Also, start solving F2L pairs in the back, not just in the front. One easy way to force yourself to do it is doing untimed F2L where you can't turn the cube until you completely recognise the case and know if you have to rotate or not.

- use double flick M2s. If you want to use MU algs for U, H, Z perms, use double flick M2s, because they make the alg a lot faster. Same thing with D2s in A perms

 

[Caden Fisher]

You're lucky, you have a lot of things to improve and bad habits to quit.

- improve your turning. This problem is also related to your rough turning style. You have an aggressive turning style, thus you lock up a lot; you should do some slow solves just focusing on not locking up, then each of the next solves try to gradually increase the turning speed while still making sure you don't lock up (note that in this case by slow solve I mean a normal solve but with slow turning, and I'm not saying anything about look ahead, which is too advanced for you now IMO). In addition to this you should drill your LL algs to make them more consistent; for instance, when I execute a T perm at a controlled speed I can do it in ~1 second, but if I try to do it as fast I as can, I'll either get a 0.8 or get a 1.8 because of lock ups. Obviously you have to turn fast, but not too fast for you to control it.
If you can remove lock ups from your solves, you can shave at least 1 second off.

- reduce regrips. This refers to both F2L and LL. Every time you regrip your thumb to the bottom during F2L, you're wasting time unnecessarily, for example when you're doing R U R' or R U2 R' or R U' R' you shouldn't regrip your thump. Same thing for last layer algs (such as T perm and N perms): don't regrip at the beginning of the alg, even though sometimes it's just a soft regrip, and don't regrip in the middle: there are a lot of videos about PLL fingertricks, you just have to look for one of them and see how you should execute your PLLs and OLLs.
Each regrip takes more than one move, so you can shave off a second at least (I think..) by avoiding them

- plan the entire cross in inspection. In some solves you did it, but not in all the solves. Also, do it efficiently, trying to do it in less than
8 moves always.

- don't do unnecessary rotations in F2L. There's one simple trick you have to remember: when you're solving an F2L case where the edge lines up with the right or left center (If it is oriented), you don't need to do any rotation; if it lines up with the front or back center (If it is not oriented) then you might need to do one rotation (at most). This is not something you you work on when you do timed solves: you should work on this especially doing untimed solves where you have plenty of time to think about it. If you do more than one rotations to solve a certain case, look up for a way to solve it rotationless or with only one rotation. Also, start solving F2L pairs in the back, not just in the front. One easy way to force yourself to do it is doing untimed F2L where you can't turn the cube until you completely recognise the case and know if you have to rotate or not.

- use double flick M2s. If you want to use MU algs for U, H, Z perms, use double flick M2s, because they make the alg a lot faster. Same thing with D2s in A perms

Thank you so much! This is a huge help! I’ll definitely spend some time working on all of the things you mentioned.

 

[Imsoosm]

You're lucky, you have a lot of things to improve and bad habits to quit.

- improve your turning. This problem is also related to your rough turning style. You have an aggressive turning style, thus you lock up a lot; you should do some slow solves just focusing on not locking up, then each of the next solves try to gradually increase the turning speed while still making sure you don't lock up (note that in this case by slow solve I mean a normal solve but with slow turning, and I'm not saying anything about look ahead, which is too advanced for you now IMO). In addition to this you should drill your LL algs to make them more consistent; for instance, when I execute a T perm at a controlled speed I can do it in ~1 second, but if I try to do it as fast I as can, I'll either get a 0.8 or get a 1.8 because of lock ups. Obviously you have to turn fast, but not too fast for you to control it.
If you can remove lock ups from your solves, you can shave at least 1 second off.

- reduce regrips. This refers to both F2L and LL. Every time you regrip your thumb to the bottom during F2L, you're wasting time unnecessarily, for example when you're doing R U R' or R U2 R' or R U' R' you shouldn't regrip your thump. Same thing for last layer algs (such as T perm and N perms): don't regrip at the beginning of the alg, even though sometimes it's just a soft regrip, and don't regrip in the middle: there are a lot of videos about PLL fingertricks, you just have to look for one of them and see how you should execute your PLLs and OLLs.
Each regrip takes more than one move, so you can shave off a second at least (I think..) by avoiding them

- plan the entire cross in inspection. In some solves you did it, but not in all the solves. Also, do it efficiently, trying to do it in less than
8 moves always.

- don't do unnecessary rotations in F2L. There's one simple trick you have to remember: when you're solving an F2L case where the edge lines up with the right or left center (If it is oriented), you don't need to do any rotation; if it lines up with the front or back center (If it is not oriented) then you might need to do one rotation (at most). This is not something you should work on when you do timed solves: you should work on this especially doing untimed solves where you have plenty of time to think about it. If you do more than one rotations to solve a certain case, look up for a way to solve it rotationless or with only one rotation. Also, start solving F2L pairs in the back, not just in the front. One easy way to force yourself to do it is doing untimed F2L where you can't turn the cube until you completely recognise the case and know if you have to rotate or not.

- use double flick M2s. If you want to use MU algs for U, H, Z perms, use double flick M2s, because they make the alg a lot faster. Same thing with D2s in A perms

Dang, I don't know how to do double flick D2... I've tried it with my pinkie and ring finger, but my finger either doesn't turn it or misses the turn. Same with U2.

 

[Caden Fisher]

Dang, I don't know how to do double flick D2... I've tried it with my pinkie and ring finger, but my finger either doesn't turn it or misses the turn. Same with U2.

I can do U2 and M2 flicks, but I can’t get the D2s.

 

[Caden Fisher]

Got my first 5x5 today!

 

[baseballjello67]

Which one? (Also, I got sub-20 around three weeks after sub-25 because I spent $5 on solve critiques. Hey, $5 goes a long way!)

 

[Caden Fisher]

Which one? (Also, I got sub-20 around three weeks after sub-25 because I spent $5 on solve critiques. Hey, $5 goes a long way!)

I got the Qiyi Ms. It seems pretty good. Hopefully I can hit sub 20 in a few weeks.