Can anyone speedcube?

[Guoguodi]

Mike, I think you've mentioned in the past how various cubers have pointed out that your fingertricks (or lack thereof?) might really be a problem. Having only 2 turns per second on LL algorithms just ... doesn't cut it, in terms of speed -- well, I think you already realise that. What are your fingertricks anyway? Most fast cubers these days all share similar fingertricks -- a single finger/thumb is used to perform all moves except R, R', L, L', and possibly D2. How fast can you do R U R' U' x 6?

Also, it might be related to how much your brain is on auto-pilot during algorithm execution. Every movement should be from muscle memory, and every unit of execution (such as an F2L or LL alg) should be performed without any thinking -- or looking, for that matter. Since your TPS isn't high, are you sure you aren't inadvertently tracking the pieces as you're doing algs? That's obviously a no-no for look ahead. Aside from the inspection and cross stages, speedcubing involves very little actual thinking. It might be that us young 'scalliwags' quickly develop rapid motor-visual response to the cube's colors, after several months practice. Color and piece recognition is very fast at the later stages of speedcubing (e.g., sub-15). Could it be that your visual processing just isn't yet at that level?

 

[Mike Hughey]

Thanks for the suggestions. My fingertricks are really about the same as everyone else's - I have paid attention to how they're supposed to be done. I just seem to get in my own way while doing them - holding the cube awkwardly; switching grips awkwardly. If you watched me cube, you'd just think everything looks awkward. (At least, that's what good cubers who have watched me seem to think.) (I do remember racing with a bunch of guys after US Nationals, and I remember Lucas Garron shouting to me at one point, "Come on, Mike, Fingertricks, Fingertricks!" It is certainly also true that I probably don't use them as often as I should.)

I just timed myself at R U R' U' x 6 - I run somewhere between 4 and 5 seconds. (And that's probably pretty sad, considering I use R U R' U' for orienting corners at BLD, so it's one of my most commonly executed sequences.) That's not really terrible (although it's certainly not very good!), but that's because my fingers mostly don't get in the way for it. But on OLL and PLL, my fingers often get in the way, slowing me down more than this.

As for the rest of it, I do suspect that might be why younger cubers get faster sooner than older ones. I don't think I'm to pure muscle memory on a lot of it. With playing piano, I consciously tend to try to fight muscle memory, since it can be the death of you when playing from memory. But with cubing, it's necessary to rely on it.

I think my relatively not bad OH times show that I don't have very good muscle memory. I run around 50 seconds OH, and I can assure you that I use almost NO muscle memory for OH, since I don't do it often enough to have developed it (except maybe things I use for BLD, A perms and such). If I'm doing that well with no muscle memory, then obviously muscle memory isn't playing enough into my 2H solving.

So it probably just boils down to that I need more practice. And it does seem like the younger kids get better faster with less practice than us older cubers. And to top it off, we older ones tend to have less time to practice, so it's a double whammy. (Of course, I seem to find the time to practice - I just waste most of it on BLD. )

 

[Swordsman Kirby]

Only Frank Morris can speedcube.

The rest of us just cube.