CubeLite's progression thread - NATIONAL CHAMPION

[bldcuber314]

/j

It could happen lol

 

[CubeLite]

I only did 10 solves on OH, but the first 5 WERE CRAZY

I got PB SINGLE and MY FIRST SUB 20 AO5

Generated By csTimer on 2025-08-18
avg of 5: 19.99

Time List:
1. (26.43) F2 U2 L2 D' B2 D2 B2 U' L2 F2 U' F2 L U F' L D2 L R2 B' R
2. (14.01[PLL skip]) R B2 L2 U' L2 D B2 D L2 D R2 B2 U2 F' U' L' D B' L' F'
3. 18.18 D L' U D2 B2 U2 L2 F L2 B2 U2 F' D2 B R' F D U2 B2 L2
4. 21.00 U2 F2 D2 R2 D B2 D B2 R2 U' F2 R F D' R2 B' U L2 R U' L'
5. 20.79 F U2 F2 D2 F R2 F D2 F L2 F2 D R2 D' B' R U B D R F'

Which also includes PB mo3 of 17.73 out of the middle 3 solves

 

[CubeLite]

Ok guys, tomorrow I'm leaving for Romanian nationals, I'll wake up at like 4 am to catch a train and arrive at the comp by 8 am, when it opens, my first event is megaminx, which I don't care at all about, so I'll more of chill during that time for multi bld which is next, I HAVEN'T done A SINGLE ATTEMPT, so I think I'll try 4-5 cubes for the first day and see what I get, because I don't want to do a lot, because I'll only have like 30 mins for skewb R1

Also, I placed an order for FZ rush and calm on Thursday, they said that I would get it in 24-36 hours, but it was a holiday on Friday so they only really started on Monday, but it didn't arrive on Monday, neither on Tuesday and on Wednesday we called them, telling that I need the lubes yesterday so that I have time to set up my cubes, and it arrived at 6 PM, like bro, I literally went straight up lubing most of my cubes, especially big cubes and megaminx, and I finished every cube at like 8 PM

I also cleaned my skewb to make it perfect and tape modded my QiYi clock, I wanted to also lube it, but FZ is water based so I can't, it still turns so much better than before

I didn't want to cube these 2 last days to give my fingers a rest, but because the package arrived so late I had to cube even today


Ig I'll also let you guys know my goals for the comp, so here are my main goals

3x3: sub 14 average, maybe PR single, but it's unlikely
3BLD: I haven't practiced that much, but at least a sub 2 single I want, and I'll also try for the first round to safety every solve to get a mean
4x4: same, I haven't practiced at all, but I want at least a sub 1 average
4BLD: this is probably my main-ish event, I practiced it the most by far, my PB stands at 15 minutes, but it was a safety, so I'll see what I do, either I safety first solve for a success, or not safety and do 2 attempts
Skewb: and ofc skewb, I want to win and get a sub 3.7-3.5 average, same as others, I haven't practiced that much, I think I'm losing my motivation for skewb, but I still think I can get a sub 4 average hopefully
And I also want to get at least 1 PR for every event, either average or single, I think I can do this, the only hard events are 2x2, clock and 3bld

And now I also remembered to tell you that I relearned 7sf bpaul version, so hopefully I'm not that bad at clock, I'll probably practice it more at the comp to see if I'll use it

I think this is all, I'll keep you guys updated during the comp and the interesting results I get

 

[CubeLite]

Now lunch break is over, but I'm at the apartment that I'll stay these days, it feels so refreshing being here, the garden is wow
As for the results, I got double PR in OH, squan and megaminx, and made finals for every event except megaminx (thanks god), I'll leave in a few minutes to get back to the venue, to skewb finals, man, I really want a sub 3.8 or something

 

[Thomas.Caleb]

Oof u will get sub 3.8 next time

 

[CubeLite]

First day of nationals has ended...and...

OH: I got double PR in both rounds, especially the average is exceptionally good, I wanted a faster single, but whatever
Clock: I relearned 7sf a few weeks ago, but I wasn't able to get my memo fast enough and be fast enough with the method in general, so I used flip, and the average in finala was really good, but on the 7, there was LITERALLY A CROSS MADE, only a -3 away from solved, but OFC I forgot to plan my other moves so I messed up out of PR, I had a pause of like 2 seconds, but it doesn't matter, since I'll get into clock sometime in the future
Megaminx: I only registered for mega to get an average, and I did just that, the sun 2 was surprising, I hoped not to get into finals, and I didn't
Square-1: was really mid, only PRs in first round, and the 20 WAS +2ed, but good anyway
Multi-BLD: was random, I messed up 2 cubes BY THE SAME CORNER (one of them was also with edges, but corners by only the H/S/SH corner) and I think I messed them up because I confused the letters S and SH between them, now I know to be careful about that corner
Skewb: you can see it all, first DNF in finals was by 2 moves out of a mid 4, and had lock ups and bad recognition on all the solves, just, no.

Tomorrow I have 5x5, 3bld, 4bld and multi
I think I'll try to do still 5 cubes on multi, get a mean in first round in 3bld and go normal on 4bld for 2 attempts, I don't care about 5x5, I just want to compete to have it on my wca

 

[bldcuber314]

First day of nationals has ended...and...View attachment 42630
OH: I got double PR in both rounds, especially the average is exceptionally good, I wanted a faster single, but whatever
Clock: I relearned 7sf a few weeks ago, but I wasn't able to get my memo fast enough and be fast enough with the method in general, so I used flip, and the average in finala was really good, but on the 7, there was LITERALLY A CROSS MADE, only a -3 away from solved, but OFC I forgot to plan my other moves so I messed up out of PR, I had a pause of like 2 seconds, but it doesn't matter, since I'll get into clock sometime in the future
Megaminx: I only registered for mega to get an average, and I did just that, the sun 2 was surprising, I hoped not to get into finals, and I didn't
Square-1: was really mid, only PRs in first round, and the 20 WAS +2ed, but good anyway
Multi-BLD: was random, I messed up 2 cubes BY THE SAME CORNER (one of them was also with edges, but corners by only the H/S/SH corner) and I think I messed them up because I confused the letters S and SH between them, now I know to be careful about that corner
Skewb: you can see it all, first DNF in finals was by 2 moves out of a mid 4, and had lock ups and bad recognition on all the solves, just, no.

Tomorrow I have 5x5, 3bld, 4bld and multi
I think I'll try to do still 5 cubes on multi, get a mean in first round in 3bld and go normal on 4bld for 2 attempts, I don't care about 5x5, I just want to compete to have it on my wca

Do at least 8 cubes in multi not 5, good luck for tomorrow

 

[CubeLite]

Do at least 8 cubes in multi not 5, good luck for tomorrow

Even tho I have 4bld and 3bld?

 

[bldcuber314]

Even tho I have 4bld and 3bld?

You have over an hour in between, should be OK(you can do less if you get tired really easily though, Ik you've been mainly practicing 4bld)

 

[CubeLite]

You have over an hour, should be OK(you can do less if you get tired really easily though, Ik you've been mainly practicing 4bld)

I only submitted 7 so that I can get sub 1 hour for sure and to have enough space in my suitcase, also, I did a 3bld solve, DNF'ed by 2 flipped edges, but the time was 1:37 :O

 

[Caleb Valenzuela]

Ok guys, tomorrow I'm leaving for Romanian nationals, I'll wake up at like 4 am to catch a train and arrive at the comp by 8 am, when it opens, my first event is megaminx, which I don't care at all about, so I'll more of chill during that time for multi bld which is next, I HAVEN'T done A SINGLE ATTEMPT, so I think I'll try 4-5 cubes for the first day and see what I get, because I don't want to do a lot, because I'll only have like 30 mins for skewb R1

Also, I placed an order for FZ rush and calm on Thursday, they said that I would get it in 24-36 hours, but it was a holiday on Friday so they only really started on Monday, but it didn't arrive on Monday, neither on Tuesday and on Wednesday we called them, telling that I need the lubes yesterday so that I have time to set up my cubes, and it arrived at 6 PM, like bro, I literally went straight up lubing most of my cubes, especially big cubes and megaminx, and I finished every cube at like 8 PM

I also cleaned my skewb to make it perfect and tape modded my QiYi clock, I wanted to also lube it, but FZ is water based so I can't, it still turns so much better than before

I didn't want to cube these 2 last days to give my fingers a rest, but because the package arrived so late I had to cube even today


Ig I'll also let you guys know my goals for the comp, so here are my main goals

3x3: sub 14 average, maybe PR single, but it's unlikely
3BLD: I haven't practiced that much, but at least a sub 2 single I want, and I'll also try for the first round to safety every solve to get a mean
4x4: same, I haven't practiced at all, but I want at least a sub 1 average
4BLD: this is probably my main-ish event, I practiced it the most by far, my PB stands at 15 minutes, but it was a safety, so I'll see what I do, either I safety first solve for a success, or not safety and do 2 attempts
Skewb: and ofc skewb, I want to win and get a sub 3.7-3.5 average, same as others, I haven't practiced that much, I think I'm losing my motivation for skewb, but I still think I can get a sub 4 average hopefully
And I also want to get at least 1 PR for every event, either average or single, I think I can do this, the only hard events are 2x2, clock and 3bld

And now I also remembered to tell you that I relearned 7sf bpaul version, so hopefully I'm not that bad at clock, I'll probably practice it more at the comp to see if I'll use it

I think this is all, I'll keep you guys updated during the comp and the interesting results I get

congrats on 2 national podiums (both in bld lol) and that sub-14 3x3 average!

 

[CubeLite]

National ended yesterday and it was good, still a bit upset for some events, but overall it was a great comp
I already talked about first day, so here are the other events

(PS, if you don't want to read all of this, you can wait 1 week for me to upload a video where I'll talk about how the comp went)

Day 2
I didn't compete in 6x6, 7x7 since I don't have them and in 5bld since I didn't have time to learn it
Multi-BLD: OMFG, I POPPED OFF, the previous day I attempted 5 cubes to see what I get, I got 3/5 which is not good, so for day 2 I wanted still to do 5 cubes, but bldcuber314 and yes cubing told me to do 8, and ig they convinced me since I did 7 cubes, I went there, sat down, started my attempt and it was everything going well, memo was somewhat smooth, but when I reached execution on one of the cubes, I memo'ed a word with the letters "I", but I realized I already finished that corner, so I was like what is happening, I went over the memo and saw that the UFR corner isn't solved, so I supposed that I should have memo'ed the letter "J", so I did that, I did the rest of the cubes and took my blindfold off at 46:35 minutes, and guess what I saw, 7/7 CUBES SOLVED, WHICH IS NR5 AND KINDA GUARANTEED ME PODIUM, when I saw that I was more in shock, I couldn't scream because there were still 2 people doing their attempts, but I was so happy to know at least I'll leave this como with 1 podium
And now I'm FINALLY BACK into the top 1000 in the world for an event, I was for skewb and clock, but got kicked out

5x5: I didn't practice that much this event, but I still got a nice 2:12 PR single, 1 second away from PB, and a 2:24 PR average, 3 seconds away from PB

3BLD: here something funny happened, I went to the bathroom before going to my station and when I got there, my judge was waiting me with the cube, I quickly grabbed my tripod, phone, headphones and warm up cube to solve, I memo'ed the cube, it was really good, I think I could have gotten a sub 2, but when I wanted to start, I realized I forgot my blindfold (R.I.P.), I stayed there 10 seconds thinking what to do, then I ran to my seat and grabbed the blindfold, but luckily I still got a success of 3 minutes
Then I did the second solve and the memo was bad, I needed to review it a couple of times, but I still got a 2:53 success, and now I knew that my goal of getting a mean was possible
When I got the third cube, I saw it was a pretty easy scramble, and I was able to finish memo I think in just over a minute, I speedruned through exec, and got a time of 1:51 SUCCESS, so I GOT MY MEAN, of 2:36.59, it's not good, but I'll take it

After that was lunch break, and then it was 3BLD finals, yea one after another

3BLD Finals: when I was looking at the rankings of previous round, I saw that I needed just a 1:44 for national podium, so I wanted to get a sub 1:45 to possibly get another podium, first solve was REALLY good, everything went smooth and got a 1:47, not 1:45 but still close, on the second attempt I got a 2:15 success, now I kinda changed my goal lol, I wanted to try and get a mean under 2 minutes, and what did I do? DNF'ed a 2:0x, but still, the 1:47 placed me 7th and podium was 1:29, yea I couldn't beat that

4BLD: and now it was my last event for day 2, we actually went to the same room as for multi for 4bld and 5bld, at least it was complete silence, I submitted my cube and waited, when I got it and started memo, it was good, memo was a bit hard maybe because I haven't done an attempt in 1 week, but when I finished the solve, it was DNF by like 3 centers and 2 corners, not good, and it was also an 18, so I "only had 12 minutes left for the 2nd attempt"
When I got the cube, I said that I'll go all out to get a success, I just wanted to not waste my last month on this event for nothing, so I did that, speedruned through memo and exec, and I saw a solved 4x4! And the time? 12:12, which I thought it was just under 10 seconds of the cumulative time, but it was actually over 30 minutes both attempts, so we talked to the delegate and he told us that the cumulative time for 4bld and 5bld are combined, so if you only do 4bld, you would have 1 hour and 30 minutes, I didn't do the last solve since I knew I couldn't beat 12 and went to the main venue, there we told another guy that DNS'ed his last solve because he thought he didn't have enough time and he quickly went there to do his last attempt and got a success of 13
And after the round was over, I saw that I GOT 3RD PLACE OVERALL AND 2ND PLACE FOR ROMANIAN PODIUM, my second podium already and the success was NR9!!

Day 3
I already talked a lot lol, so I'll say on short for 3rd day
Multi-BLD: I ofc tried to do as many cute s as I had with em, which was 9 because I already had podium, the memo was slow and kinda bad, which resulted in 5/9 and over an hour, with 2 more cubes to solve, but from what I saw in the room, nobody got more than 7 cubes this attempt, so that meant that I got 2ND PLACE OVERALL AT MULTI

3x3: I'll talk about both rounds here, first round was REALLY GOOD, until I DNF'ed a 12.49 because I did the wrong G perm out of a 12.91 average, still a low 13 isn't bad, and in second round I don't even know what happened, I got a 16, then 2 11s, so I was on pace for PR average, BUT got an 18, and on the last solve I went all out for PR single, but messed up last pair in F2L, and the solve had potential of being 10 but no longer

2x2: was EWW, I literally got a counting low 3, low 4...and 6, if I didn't mess up last solve I could have literally gotten a 3 average and maybe make finals, that's why I don't like 2x2 lol

4x4: was meh, 3 really good solves, but ofc I counted a 1:01 which resulted in a 56.36 PR average by 10 seconds and PR single of 51.74, PR by over 10 seconds again

Pyraminx: and the last event to talk about and my last event for the comp which was pyra finals, but until then, I big time failed PR average in first round by 0.11 away from PR average, but luckily for me, I got 19th place, and top 20 went to finals
And in finals, umm, I +2'ed a 7.70 and some other lock ups out of PR average again

Also, there was this surprise puzzle for the top 3 competitors with the most PRs, and guess what, I got tied with 3rd place for 16 PRs, and got a pyramorphix from QiYi, which is nice since I didn't have it yet since I don't collect non WCA puzzles

And ofc here are both of my medals and diplomas

Finally finished writing everything, the comp was great, but still skewb haunts me a little, but I've already made myself some goals for nationals 2026 when it comes
Skewb win
3x3 Finals
And podium at every BLD event and win one of them
So ig for the next year I'll practice skewb as always, getting back to sub 3, learn 5bld, do more cubes for multi and get faster at 3bld and 4bld, and get sub 10 at 3x3, because this year, last seed going into finals was 10.05

And here are the pics of my results

Spoiler: Results

 

[CubeLite]

congrats on 2 national podiums (both in bld lol) and that sub-14 3x3 average!

Thx, and as you can read in the previous post I just made, 3x3 wasn't that good

 

[CubeLite]

Sorry for triple post, but I remembered about these

3x3: sub 14 average, maybe PR single, but it's unlikely

Didn't get PR single, but got a low 13 average

3BLD: I haven't practiced that much, but at least a sub 2 single I want, and I'll also try for the first round to safety every solve to get a mean
4x4: same, I haven't practiced at all, but I want at least a sub 1 average
4BLD: this is probably my main-ish event, I practiced it the most by far, my PB stands at 15 minutes, but it was a safety, so I'll see what I do, either I safety first solve for a success, or not safety and do 2 attempts

I even got podium here

Skewb: and ofc skewb, I want to win and get a sub 3.7-3.5 average, same as others, I haven't practiced that much, I think I'm losing my motivation for skewb, but I still think I can get a sub 4 average hopefully

No no no, I didn't get anything here

And I also want to get at least 1 PR for every event, either average or single, I think I can do this, the only hard events are 2x2, clock and 3bld

I didn't get PR on skewb, 2x2 and clock, on 2x2 I was really close, but counted a 6

 

[Bingus cuber]

2 national podiums is crazy! Gj man, skewb next year

 

[CubeLite]

I did 3 4bld attempts where I went as fast as I could, and well, I got triple DNFs
BUT all of them were 10 minutes, except one of them that was SUB 10, DNF BY ONLY 3 EDGES

Generated By csTimer on 2025-08-30
mean of 3: DNF

Time List:
1. DNF(10:55.13)=6:07.44+4:47.68[Missturned a slice layer and forgot to memo 2 edges]
2. DNF(9:31.43)=4:31.65+4:59.77[3 edges]
3. DNF(10:48.84)=5:13.38+5:35.46[8 edges, 4 corned, 2 centers]

Spoiler: Pictures of the DNFs

Attempt #1

Attempt #2

Attempt #3

Even tho I triple DNF'ed, this was still a really good practice, now I know I can memo fast and still remember it, I should really start doing that in 3bld and 4bld more often, I always put my blindfold on just after I'm 100% sure I know memo well, and I also need to execute faster, on every blind event

 

[CubeLite]

Did 2 4bld attempts since I just can't concentrate at all, but I still was able to get a success! And the funny thing is that it's not even PB (my PR is 12:12)

Generated By csTimer on 2025-08-31
single: 12:34.80

Time List:
1. 12:34.80=6:30.42+6:04.38

 

[CubeLite]

I know I said I quited the forums, and I'm still doing that, I just wanted to let you guys know an update about my right hand:
So I went to the doctor to see what is wrong with my hand, because it's still hurting after 9 months of removing it from the gypsum, and well, after 4 HOURS of waiting and making me go places, they told me that I need to not use the hand for 3 weeks (so no cubing, writing a lot, carrying heavy things), then start using it little by little and while doing these, to massage them with cream every day twice

So ig now I have a lot of time to finish my letter pairs and learn them, also to make videos, since now when I start working, I don't need to think if I should cube or edit
Also, I saw that the poll on That0newe1rdo's progression thread was deleted, can a mod also delete mine? Since it has a lot of useless stuff and it's really ugly, thanks in advance

Anyway, cya again

 

[Caleb Valenzuela]

I know I said I quited the forums, and I'm still doing that, I just wanted to let you guys know an update about my right hand:
So I went to the doctor to see what is wrong with my hand, because it's still hurting after 9 months of removing it from the gypsum, and well, after 4 HOURS of waiting and making me go places, they told me that I need to not use the hand for 3 weeks (so no cubing, writing a lot, carrying heavy things), then start using it little by little and while doing these, to massage them with cream every day twice

So ig now I have a lot of time to finish my letter pairs and learn them, also to make videos, since now when I start working, I don't need to think if I should cube or edit
Also, I saw that the poll on That0newe1rdo's progression thread was deleted, can a mod also delete mine? Since it has a lot of useless stuff and it's really ugly, thanks in advance

Anyway, cya again

bruh what is going on

 

[CubeLite]

bruh what is going on

What's confusing
As you know my hand was in gypsum and it should have been fine until now, since the fingers were only sprained, nothing to do with the bones, but it's not so I'm staying 3 weeks like I have a gypsum, but without one ig and see if it's doing anything

Also mods, please delete my poll, it literally has the size of 2 screenshot with the phone
I don't want to ping anyone since it's annoying, but I hope one of you sees this