How I am learning PLL

darkerarceus

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Well as you might know I use 4LL and trying to make that 3LL. I know 10/21 PLL's
and I feel that I'm ready for full PLL. What I've currently done is learnt ONLY the PLL names and Direction etc. but not the difference between and R(a) or R(b), G(a) etc. (Although I know the difference between J's as I learnt them as mirrors). Then for some random untimed solves I just AUF then identify what PLL it is, after I am confident with a PLL (Which will probably be like every few days or even a week) I'll learn it! This is also the perfect time because it is the school holidays here.

So, whadya think?
 
I've still not learnt full PLL because I'm learning at about 2 per month. I already knew edges, A, T, Y from 2-look.
I learnt all the Gs in a week then spent 1 month getting used to them so I didn't get confused when I learnt more. Them I learnt the Rs, another month getting used to. Then Js. I'm still getting used to Js. Sometimes I get confused between the algorithm for Rb (R' U2 R U2...) and Jb (R U2 R' U'...) because I don't pick up a cube that often. At Christmas when I have a lot more free time and nothing to do, I'll try to learn the rest (E, F, N, V) in a week or two.
I agree with you though. I learnt how to identify them all before I learnt any algorithms, it's much easier. And when you think you've done that, try it for a 4x4x4 and still see if you can determine whether it's a PLL case or a parity error in 1 or 2 seconds. On a 3x3x3, try to identify the case without AUF.
 
Only the basics of names matter. PLLs can usually be described by where a specific block or pattern is located and which direction the pieces need to be cycled.

right. I dont know the G's as G(a) G (b) G(c) and G(d). I know them all with the headlights to the left, and either a horizontal or vertical block and the front or the back
 
For the recognition thing, I'd suggest to look for patterns on the already "solved" pieces instead of the ones that need permutation.
Work by a process of elimination:
If you see 3 colours on one side, then you know that it is Ua, Ub, Ja, Jb or F and you can "eliminate" all the rest.
If you see 4 solved pairs, then its either Na or Nb (Na if they point anticlockwise, Nb if clockwise).
If you see 2 solved pairs, then its either T or Y (T if the point to the same direction, Y if they don't).
If you see 1 solved pair, then its Ra, Rb, Ga, Gb, Gc, Gb (Rs if the oposite pair is almost complete, Gs otherwise. Ga or Gb if the pair is to the left, Gc or Gb if its to the right. Ga if two colours on the oposite side, Gb otherwise etc.)
If you see 1 solved corner, then its Aa, Ab or V (Aa or Ab if two colours on top, V otherwise).
If you se no pairs, then its Z, H or E (Z if adjacent colours, H if opposite colours, E if 3 colours down or up)
If you see 4 solved sides then its a PLL skip. Stop thinking, drop the cube and stop the timer!

As you can see, you have a tree in your head when you know all PLLs. That way, once your brain has a sub-group of possible cases it will find the right one more quickly.

Organizing the PLL cases this way also helps you when learning them, just learn one branch at the time and forget about the others. And for each branch learn one PLL at a time.
 
Wontolla has made a good point. Depending on what you want to get out of learning your PLLs should be what decides your time frame. Most people just suck it up and learn all 21 in less than a month (1 PLL a day is certainly do-able, and learning all of them in a week (which is less than 3 a day since you already know at least two from knowing 4LLL) is also do-able) and learn to recognize the cases by brute force solving. If you'd rather have a great understanding of each PLL (recognition wise) before learning a new one, I'd say this is the wrong way to go about it (because it takes a good bit of time to learn each PLL from two sides and have less than 0.5s pause for recognition, for me anyhow).

If your intentions are to learn all PLLs to reduce your LL times, I'd learn at least two similar PLLs a day. What I mean by this is learn the mirrors (such as J's, R's, Ga/c, Gb/d, etc), then learn the single ones. T is always easy to learn though and really fast, and you can learn an F perm that is just a conjugate T perm. Or you could learn V and F in the same day as they are only two moves different if you use the algorithm I have in mind (the V alg that starts with R' U R' U' would be R' U2 R' U' for F, then there's an extra U' in the V alg if you're doing the F PLL).

Honestly learning PLL recognition will take time, and you are better off (in my opinion) learning all 21 and having a moderate recognition and recall, than spending a lot of time on each alg. If you could learn a new PLL in a week, and your recognition is as good as knowing what case you have from looking at any two adjacent sides, then it would still take you 21 weeks (5 months). In my opinion that is far too long and you'd be much better off just learning one PLL a day then reading a good PLL recognition guide (stachu's or sarah's) to learn them from two sides.

Don't forget, you can always do PLL only practice, where you concentrate on getting each of your PLL's sub2, or sub1.5 for the easy ones (but set a goal for sub3 and sub2 for easy ones first, because getting a fast PLL does take practice).

Also, when learning your PLLs, keep recall tricks in mind. Such as the Ra vs Rb algs. The Rb alg starts as R' U2, and Ra starts as R U2. The easy way to remember this is which way your block is pointing, move R accordingly. Rb's block points to F, so move R in the same direction, whereas Ra it points to B, so move R towards B. You can do this for the G perms (block on R) as well. Just look for those types of tricks, and that should help your recall out a decent bit (until the algs set into muscle memory).

Another thing: Don't forget that you can benefit from some OLLs when learning PLLs. Y and E perms are a great example of this. The common Y perm is just two OLLs (kite + T, the SM + SH T OLL) put together, and the E perm (RUD one, anyhow) is also two OLLs (chameleon and bowtie).
 
If asked, I couldn't tell you what any of the PLLs are by name because when I was learning them I just printed out their diagrams + algorithms. Do you guys actually think "That's Rb perm" when solving, or do you just learn the names for easier communication with other cubers?
 
I really only use the Ra vs Rb when communicating with cubers. When I'm solving I never think"Oh that's Ra." Really I don't even think of a PLL name when solving, I just think of where to AUF to, and recalling it. I more often have to think of a PLL shape in my head when it's mentioned to recall the alg. A great example for me is Ua vs Ub. I still don't remember which one is cw or ccw. Same with A, but with J I know the difference but only from brute force remembering Jb is the inverted T perm. For the longest time I didn't remember which J was the "good" J (even though they are both easy).

For G perm communication I often say where the block is (F, RF, RB, B) rather than a/b/c/d because most people I communicate regularly with don't know the different cases, but they can easily see where the block is (and this is given that headlights is on the left).
 
No need to know (a) and (b). Just know that generally the (b) cases are better for fingertricks (or so it seems). Learn them in order the way badmephisto says but don't necessarily use his algs, use the wiki and find ones that work for you.

And use this to maybe manipulate the alg to make it better for you: http://cube.crider.co.uk/algtrans.html
 
Watch badmephistos PLL videos
I have multiple times.

There's really no need to know the different names for the PLL mirrors like R(a) vs. R(b), A(a) vs. A(b).


This one especially:

I learnt the difference between A(a) and A(b) by just AUFing and seeing if the corners go Clockwise or Counter-Clockwise
so I just like to reffer to PLLs.

Thanks for your reeeaallly informative posts everyone.
 
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For the A pll's, I just look at the block, and one of the sides of the block has a sticker on the corner that is opposite color of the block. Set up a case, and do Acw to set up your case. If you have white on top, set it up so that you have a red/blue block. If you use a standard color scheme your blue face should consist of blue/blue/orange, and the red face should consist of red/red/orange. I know which A perm I have by looking for the opposite colored sticker, which in this case would be orange. I know to move R, then whichever side has the opposite sticker, then R again. So for Accw (I do these from a different angle, by the way) I would do R U' R D2, whereas if this were to be Acw to solve, I would see blue/blue/green and I would know to do R2 D2 R' to start the alg out.
 
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