RobbW
Member
And my "Hobby Tourettes" (as my wife likes to call it) has kicked in again; this time with cubing. I have a standard Rubik's brand cube that I bought a few years ago. I learned to solve it the beginner's method and played with it for months and months. Then life got in the way, and I set my cube down for a couple years. Coming back to my Rubik's cube recently, I found I had forgotten how to solve the danged thing. Spent some time relearning the beginner's method again and have progressively been getting faster at it. Well, faster than my previous times. I'm still very much moving at geriatric speed compared to all you speed solvers!
I live in the Chicagoland area and an accountant at an airport by profession. I also do rideshare driving on the side to earn extra money for Disney World trips for my family. I keep my cube in the car and practice in between rideshare trips. I have recently been able to get my solve time just under two minutes using the beginner's method. I wanted to learn how to get faster. So, that's when I found all these speed cubing sites and YT videos. I bought my first legit speed cube a week ago; a Valk 3 Power M off of Amazon. I also ordered the same (but stickerless) cube as a Cosmic custom. Still waiting for that order to ship.
I have also started learning and practicing the CFOP method. Hoo boy! Let me tell ya, that has been a tough transition for me. Initially, my solve times nearly doubled compared to using the beginner's method. However, I am slowly bringing my times down as I get used to the CFOP method. It just isn't very intuitive for me. Right now, I'm averaging between 2-3 minutes using CFOP. I'm hoping to cut those times in half in the short term as I practice more. I have no grand illusions of becoming a master speed solver with sub-20 times. However, I would be very satisfied if I could at least get consistently under 60 seconds.
Would anyone be willing to give their most useful tip (other than practice, practice, practice) for wrapping their brains around cases and their associated algorithms? It seems like there are so many cases, each with their own algorithms, that it's overwhelming to simply try to memorize them all. Is it best to just try and memorize a few algorithms that can be applied to almost any case, even if it requires performing the algorithms a couple times in a row to make it work?
Thanks, all. And I look forward to diving into the community!
I live in the Chicagoland area and an accountant at an airport by profession. I also do rideshare driving on the side to earn extra money for Disney World trips for my family. I keep my cube in the car and practice in between rideshare trips. I have recently been able to get my solve time just under two minutes using the beginner's method. I wanted to learn how to get faster. So, that's when I found all these speed cubing sites and YT videos. I bought my first legit speed cube a week ago; a Valk 3 Power M off of Amazon. I also ordered the same (but stickerless) cube as a Cosmic custom. Still waiting for that order to ship.
I have also started learning and practicing the CFOP method. Hoo boy! Let me tell ya, that has been a tough transition for me. Initially, my solve times nearly doubled compared to using the beginner's method. However, I am slowly bringing my times down as I get used to the CFOP method. It just isn't very intuitive for me. Right now, I'm averaging between 2-3 minutes using CFOP. I'm hoping to cut those times in half in the short term as I practice more. I have no grand illusions of becoming a master speed solver with sub-20 times. However, I would be very satisfied if I could at least get consistently under 60 seconds.
Would anyone be willing to give their most useful tip (other than practice, practice, practice) for wrapping their brains around cases and their associated algorithms? It seems like there are so many cases, each with their own algorithms, that it's overwhelming to simply try to memorize them all. Is it best to just try and memorize a few algorithms that can be applied to almost any case, even if it requires performing the algorithms a couple times in a row to make it work?
Thanks, all. And I look forward to diving into the community!
