How long did it take you to get fast?

I started speedcubing in october if I remember correctly but I took it seriously only in december. (I was already averaging 45/40 I think)
Right now I'm sub 35-33 and averaging about 28. (PBs written in my signature, I'm breaking them each time I do a new session)
I am hopping to be sub 22 or so by april for nationals !

That ao 100 is op. No one can even come close to beating that
 
My wife got me a Rubik's speed cube a couple of months ago just for fun. I've learned CFOP with 2-look OLL, and I get between 1:15-1:45. I don't see myself progressing as fast as a lot of people here, but then again, I'm 42. Any other older guys getting into this? How are your times?
I'm 42 and I have a 32 second average and a 20 second single after about 7 months.
 
Dont worry about what artic says. He is a bit annoying when you talk about progress. I am exactly like you in terms of speed, just got a sub 13 ao 100 today. For sub 10, 6 tps i believe and sub 2 for all algs. If you use cfop, 1-5-2-2 or 1-6-1.5-1.5. Depends on where your high tps is (algs vs intuitive steps).

Ok. Thanks!!!
 
That's kind of where I'd like to be in that time frame.

Did you do anything special, or just solve a lot?

I solve a lot and I always have a cube handy to sneak in solves when I get a chance. The only unusual thing I did was learn full Fridrich before I was even sub 60. I don't really recommend that but my reasoning was that I wanted to avoid drilling in a muscle memory only to have to reprogram it later. Turns out that's not such a big deal as I've been able to swap out algorithms with relative ease. It might have been better to learn 4LLL until I was sub 40 or sub 30. Either way, now I know them all and I can focus on practicing.

I don't have great dexterity or hand-eye coordination and I'm slow in terms of case recognition and algorithm recall so I think most folks can do what I did or better. It just takes takes more time to build up speed when you're not 12 anymore. I might also be faster at 3x3 now if I didn't get distracted by 2x2, 4x4 and 5x5. I even learned full CLL for the 2x2 in addition to all the big cube parity algorithms so I have 130-odd algorithms bouncing around my old noggin'. Right now it's hard keeping them all straight and it's just gonna take time to make them reflexes. My skills will not impress anyone on these forums but I enjoy it and I'm making consistent progress. I've even gone to a few competitions and not come in last which is good enough for me.
 
I solve a lot and I always have a cube handy to sneak in solves when I get a chance. The only unusual thing I did was learn full Fridrich before I was even sub 60. I don't really recommend that but my reasoning was that I wanted to avoid drilling in a muscle memory only to have to reprogram it later. Turns out that's not such a big deal as I've been able to swap out algorithms with relative ease. It might have been better to learn 4LLL until I was sub 40 or sub 30. Either way, now I know them all and I can focus on practicing.
I'm only doing 4LLL at the moment. I'm not even sub-60 yet. I suppose I could have been, as I have done a 1m1s single solve a few times, but I've decided to concentrate on learning F2L for the time being as I am so slow at it. As I've been doing mainly slow, steady solves, trying to learn all the F2L cases my overall speed has taken a massive nosedive and I'm taking close to 2 minutes to solve most of the time now.

I'm not bothered about that too much though. When I know F2L properly then I'll start trying to build up speed again. I doubt I'll ever bother with full OLL, but I will definitely learn full PLL at some point.

I don't have great dexterity or hand-eye coordination and I'm slow in terms of case recognition and algorithm recall so I think most folks can do what I did or better. It just takes takes more time to build up speed when you're not 12 anymore. I might also be faster at 3x3 now if I didn't get distracted by 2x2, 4x4 and 5x5. I even learned full CLL for the 2x2 in addition to all the big cube parity algorithms so I have 130-odd algorithms bouncing around my old noggin'. Right now it's hard keeping them all straight and it's just gonna take time to make them reflexes. My skills will not impress anyone on these forums but I enjoy it and I'm making consistent progress. I've even gone to a few competitions and not come in last which is good enough for me.
I'm not naturally fast either, especially at recognition. I can sit there for like 5 seconds or something staring at the cube sometimes, looking for an F2L pair, or the last piece of the cross. Not good. But I was getting close to a minute times using beginners method, so I should hopefully be able to drop quite a bit lower than that once I get F2L and the cross down. I find OLL and PLL pretty routine now. I just need to get faster at it.

If I could get to the point where I could enter a comp and not get humiliated I would be happy with that. Sub-20 would be great if I can get there.
 
I'm only doing 4LLL at the moment. I'm not even sub-60 yet. I suppose I could have been, as I have done a 1m1s single solve a few times, but I've decided to concentrate on learning F2L for the time being as I am so slow at it. As I've been doing mainly slow, steady solves, trying to learn all the F2L cases my overall speed has taken a massive nosedive and I'm taking close to 2 minutes to solve most of the time now.

I'm not bothered about that too much though. When I know F2L properly then I'll start trying to build up speed again. I doubt I'll ever bother with full OLL, but I will definitely learn full PLL at some point.


I'm not naturally fast either, especially at recognition. I can sit there for like 5 seconds or something staring at the cube sometimes, looking for an F2L pair, or the last piece of the cross. Not good. But I was getting close to a minute times using beginners method, so I should hopefully be able to drop quite a bit lower than that once I get F2L and the cross down. I find OLL and PLL pretty routine now. I just need to get faster at it.

If I could get to the point where I could enter a comp and not get humiliated I would be happy with that. Sub-20 would be great if I can get there.

As long as you are sub 10 (minutes), you can go to a comp and have fun. To get faster, just turn reallly slowlyyyyyy. You will eliminate all pauses.
 
Using the Beginner's Method, I've gone from a two minute solve six months ago on my first day, to thirty-forty second solves today. I want to learn Fridrich, but it's too difficult for me to remember the algorithms.
 
I've been seriously speedcubing for like 13 months now, I only count that because I was doing it for like 2 years doing like a few solves per month, sometimes skipping a few months just for show at like 2-3 minutes (Before I discovered the speedsolving community). I'm Sub-15.5 seconds now. But progression is different for everyone, people get stumped at different times. For instance, like half of that 13 month period was spent on the 20-30 second stage.
 
I'm familiar with intuitive F2L, but not brilliant. Using that with Beginner's method got me a 25-second personal best. Now I'm trying to learn the seven OLL algorithms.
 
I picked up my first speedcube about 10 days ago.

My recent average is about 2 minutes. My PB is 1.42.

I feel I've stalled already. Is this a normal kind of progression?

How fast did you get fast?
yes you will progress fast, knowing 4LLL is not common among people averaging at 2minutes and most cubers at your stage dont know F2L, you can get down to 40 seconds without 4LLL or F2L, so you will progress fast, i reccomend practicing each stage seperately
 
I currently average about 16.5 seconds and I spent basically half a year averaging from 35 going down to 20 however once i got down to 20 I progressed very quickly it only took me about a week. I learned F2L at around 1 minute and at around 22 seconds I switched to roux for about 2 months then i swithced back to CFOP. Roux really improved my lookeahed which helped me get sub 20. I still use 4LLL and I can get sub 20 beginners method times. My progression is weird but I think it really all came down to getting rid of pauses
 
Same. On the topic of progress, I've found that doing an ao100 a day is very helpful.

That would be very helpful but I don't have quite that much time to dedicate to uninterrupted practice. Throughout the day, I do lots of casual solves and on most days I try to do an ao12 that's better than my current mean of 100.
 
That would be very helpful but I don't have quite that much time to dedicate to uninterrupted practice. Throughout the day, I do lots of casual solves and on most days I try to do an ao12 that's better than my current mean of 100.
Understandable. I'm still on break until tomorrow so I've had plenty of free time. Also I don't really have a full time job or many other responsibilities, so that helps.

I think at the end of the day it really just comes down to practice. Sure, you need to know your stuff, but if you have to think about anything during your solve your time gets worse, so drilling in case recognition is key, even for "intuitive" methods like Petrus and roux you still have cases, they just don't look like fridrich cases.
 
yes you will progress fast, knowing 4LLL is not common among people averaging at 2minutes and most cubers at your stage dont know F2L, you can get down to 40 seconds without 4LLL or F2L, so you will progress fast, i reccomend practicing each stage seperately
Yeah, I'm focussing mainly on F2L at the moment. After that it will be the cross.

Then PLL. Then OLL.
 
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