getting from sub 50 to early 30's???

[noobcuber]

I started out averaging 1 minute 30 and now average 48 with a P.B of 41 seconds after an extra week of work.
I do

1. Cross
2. F2L ( haven't got the whole looking ahead thing down yet)
3. 2 look OLL
4. 9/21 PLL algs

My progress has some what stalled

Anyone??? From your personal experiences what steps did you guys take from where I am to get faster.

AND ALSO:
When you look ahead do you track a corner and an edge at the same time because I can only track a corner or an edge not both at ther same time??

 

[Dene]

I found that my times would drop down in 10 second leaps, from about 1:30 to sub40. So keep working on the PLL's and keep practising. Once you get sub40 progress will slow a bit, then once you're sub30 progress will really slow down. Practise is the key.

As for lookahead you do want to be tracking the corner and the edge, or even 2 pairs if possible. I don't see any need for you to worry too much about it though. I know Macky's advice is to slow down, but that is only really of use once you are sub20. You want to be going as fast as you can. Force your finger to move in a blur. If it's taking you 49ish seconds to solve the cube then your fingers will be moving slowly, so work on that. Of course recognition is another important factor, and that only comes with time and practise.

 

[Kolraz]

I am currently averging 37-42 ish and ive noticed a sudden hault in progress. I sometimes can consistently get sub-40 and other times i cannot. I can sometimes seem to lookahead better than other times and i need to work on keeping consistent.

 

[pcwiz]

I am currently averging 37-42 ish and ive noticed a sudden hault in progress. I sometimes can consistently get sub-40 and other times i cannot. I can sometimes seem to lookahead better than other times and i need to work on keeping consistent.

When you get around that time, progress slows down GREATLY. Just keep on practicing (a lot) and you'll get better!

 

[bundat]

I've been gathering tips to improve my time too, and here's what I've got so far:

Cross: bring it down to 2-3 seconds
- remember that you can always for the cross in 8 moves or less, learn to find that "algo", fast
- practice until you can do it blindfolded. No peeking.

OLL: bring it down to 2-4 seconds
- just practice it until it becomes muscle memory
- if you're using 2-Look, bring it down to 4-6 seconds

PLL: bring each PLL execution to sub-2
- learn how to recognize PLL cases, FAST
- find the good and easy (for you) algs in the sticky
- just practice it until it becomes muscle memory
- do PLL time attacks. A LOT.

That would bring your total time to 6-9 seconds (8-11 seconds for 2-Look OLL).
Leaving 11-14 seconds (or 9-12 seconds for 2-Look OLL) to do F2L to become sub-20.
Which is the hardest one to achieve (all the others are pretty easy with a bit of practice).

So far, the things I do to improve F2L are
- use a metronome for practice while forming the cross and first 3 F2L pairs (you can just rush through the last one).
This trains you with 2 things... searching for the first F2L pair while doing the cross so you don't pause after the cross, and continuous look ahead during the F2L stage. Try 60 BPM first. And speed it up bit by bit.
- learn to do F2L from at least 2 angles, to lessen cube rotations and slow regrips
- keep track of empty slots, and use them to avoid cube rotations
- learn to use keyhole in some special cases. It's much easier (and faster) to use it in cases like "corner+edge inserted in the right place, wrong edge orientation", and there's still a empty slot/corner (~8 moves in contrast to the 11-12 move-ish F2L algo).
- keep your move count low, find the optimal solution to the optimal pair. Use only 7-8 moves per pair (so that you get only 27-30 moves for the F2L). Record your F2L, if you're getting 40+ moves, that's pretty bad. At 4 moves per second, that's 10 seconds (if there are no pauses and with perfect look-ahead). While at 28 moves, that's only 7 seconds.
- DON'T watch the corner and edge piece you are working on (something I read from Jason Baum). A bad habit, he says, is to connect/align a corner-edge pair, then look again on how you'd insert them. You lose A LOT of time here. Know ahead of time how you'd insert them before you connect/align them.
- F2L tricks are also nice. I just read up on a few multislotting cases, and it's nice when they come up.
- PRACTICE.

 

[signaly]

Well if you stop even for a sec that can affect your time. Kind of what Dene said you should just try and force your fingers to move fast but think and look ahead at the same time . It sounds kind of hard but again practice. Also you can do what I do and try and do the cube slower than you normally would without stopping then each day gradually go faster increasing the speed of your fingers. Trust me from personal experience it does work.