I was introduced to Rubik’s cubes by the super Mario maker themed cube gifted to those who pre ordered the game. If anyone knows about this cube, they know it was the cheapest throw-in gift Nintendo could afford, and I’m pretty sure it turns worse than the original Rubik’s brand (not lying it’s that bad). I was fiddling with this and another cube that was an official cube that turned only slightly better yet missing some stickers.
My dad wanted to show me a real cube and we proceeded out of the house one night in 4th grade to pick up pizzas and go to Walmart to buy a cube and a magic 8 ball (random lol) with a gift card I got for my birthday. We bought it and I was so scared to scramble it that I barely made any turns in the car.
Dad tried to teach me using a website called howtosolvearubikscube.com or something and I was too lazy to learn any algs so I only solved it with the guide. (This site is a really tough beginners method lol, idk why they didn’t use an easier method.) He eventually tried to have me learn to solve the white side! I struggled with this this greatly, and solved the white side but not layer, after like 10 minutes. I was so proud of myself. I remember he told me that I need to solve the whole a layer, and eventually I figured out the first two layers without a guide. After that, I gave up on last layer.
Fast-forward to one of the first days of school in 6th grade. I walked into my first enrichment class, (I think it’s for like high iq) and the first assignment my teacher gave us was to solve a Rubik’s cube. We literally walked in and she slammed a Rubik’s cube on our desks and said solve it. Groans echoed from the room from the about 20 kids in the room, including phrases like aww I can’t do it, this is stupid, and several kids who were like, well I’ll try my best. She paid attention to our mindset, because that’s what she was testing with this, our mindset (it was a lesson on growth vrs set mindset). I was able to recall the muscle memory to solve the first two layers, and she motivated me to learn from a YouTube video (which also wasn’t amazing but I was the one who found it). I remember practicing hard for two days until one Sunday morning I solved it in the car, on the ride to church in the morning. Once I learned and reported it back to her, happily, after congratulating me she told me to start timing myself, and help others in the class learn as well. I remember trying to improve my about 1:45 minute times on some cheap timing website I found on my Chromebook and getting annoyed when I couldn’t improve. I got even more demotivated when I taught my best friend at the time and he instantly got faster than me. I thought, “I already know how to solve it, why get faster.” I put the cube on my shelf and glanced at it guilty for about a year.
Let’s fast forward again to the last quarter of 7th grade. I had somehow gotten the urge to solve the cube randomly one day and was hooked. I remember getting stuck with the times I used to have so I learned beginner CFOP. I was happy to report this to the enrichment class I was still in (not anymore sadly but I miss it) and my friends were amazed. Once I learned it, I solved so much I went down to 23 seconds as my pb at the end of 7th grade, timed on my watch bc I didn’t have a phone app yet lol. I continued to improve and learned full Oll and PLL over the summer. My alg motivation was being tired after my running club in the morning and retiring to my room to listen to layer by layer (the best podcast ever) and learning algs with a snack and maybe Gatorade. I got more involved in the cubing community, including watching Jperm regularly like a basic 13 year cuber who doesn’t know any other good channels, and somehow finding this website, which I stalked without an account for a while until convincing my parents to let me make one in early 8th grade (about 9 months ago).
Since then I was amazed when I got my first sub 20 averages, and also brought my 5x5 times down to sub 2 sometimes and other times not. On October 31st I got my first sub-10, and have about 7 now. I’ve attended two wca comps, made a vlog on one, gotten crazy unbelievable results there for me, and am glad this hobby came into my life.
