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How to actually improve in cubing

Joined
Jul 19, 2024
Messages
1,252
Location
from Asia's land of the heat
WCA
2022VALE15
Alright, I’ve seen people trying to improve, but stall at a certain barrier, or don’t even improve at all. I am going to show you how to improve at cubing, so that you can get those PBs/PRs, and goals that were long unbroken.
You might be asking, “who is this kid telling me how to improve my Rubik’s cube times?” Well, I average around 8-9 seconds, and I got stuck trying to break the sub-11 barrier. Now enough yapping and let’s get on to the main reasons why you are not improving, and how we can fix it.
1. You are not practicing enough
If you don’t practice, you won’t get anywhere, which should be pretty obvious, but some of us don’t have enough time to cube, especially if your time management skills aren’t that good (like me). You can set a practice schedule for about 30 mins to an hour, practicing a different event everyday. If you want more info about this, you can watch this video by James Alonso, where I got this idea:
(make sure you are doing deliberate practice too!)
2. You practice too much
Yes, there is such thing as practicing too much, which is what happened to me. So I was practicing (with deliberate practice) everyday, but saw no results. So when I went on a vacation to somewhere, I stopped and took a break. Then when I started practicing again, I improved! So sometimes, you just need a break to really improve your times.
3. You don’t drill your weaknesses
We all have different weaknesses, but here are some drills that really helped me improve.
1.) Drilling OLL and PLL algorithms
You can use jperm.net and bestsiteever.ru to drill OLL and PLL algorithms. You can also use bestsiteever to drill ZBLL. (you can also just time your algs)
2.) Doing RU and LU gen solves
This is a very simple drill. Just scramble the cube using R and U moves, then solve it. Same goes for the LU gen. If you want, you can go to the tab above the scramble with WCA written in cstimer, scroll down to 3x3 subsets, then select RU gen or LU gen.
3.) The Solve Split Drill
Basically, you scramble the cube, plan cross or cross+1, close your eyes and solve it, check if you solved cross/cross+1, then plan the next three F2L pairs, solve it blindfolded or while closing your eyes, then finish it with OLL and PLL. Pretty simple but it helped me become sub-10.
4.) Timing your splits
Go to cstimer, and then go to settings. In the timer section, look for multi-phase. Press the addition button to increase and the subtraction button to decrease.
You can use this to time the steps in your solves. This is really helpful and can be used for all events.

I hope this helped, and stay tuned because I am going to make more sub-x threads!
 
Alright, I’ve seen people trying to improve, but stall at a certain barrier, or don’t even improve at all. I am going to show you how to improve at cubing, so that you can get those PBs/PRs, and goals that were long unbroken.
You might be asking, “who is this kid telling me how to improve my Rubik’s cube times?” Well, I average around 8-9 seconds, and I got stuck trying to break the sub-11 barrier. Now enough yapping and let’s get on to the main reasons why you are not improving, and how we can fix it.
1. You are not practicing enough
If you don’t practice, you won’t get anywhere, which should be pretty obvious, but some of us don’t have enough time to cube, especially if your time management skills aren’t that good (like me). You can set a practice schedule for about 30 mins to an hour, practicing a different event everyday. If you want more info about this, you can watch this video by James Alonso, where I got this idea:
(make sure you are doing deliberate practice too!)
2. You practice too much
Yes, there is such thing as practicing too much, which is what happened to me. So I was practicing (with deliberate practice) everyday, but saw no results. So when I went on a vacation to somewhere, I stopped and took a break. Then when I started practicing again, I improved! So sometimes, you just need a break to really improve your times.
3. You don’t drill your weaknesses
We all have different weaknesses, but here are some drills that really helped me improve.
1.) Drilling OLL and PLL algorithms
You can use jperm.net and bestsiteever.ru to drill OLL and PLL algorithms. You can also use bestsiteever to drill ZBLL. (you can also just time your algs)
2.) Doing RU and LU gen solves
This is a very simple drill. Just scramble the cube using R and U moves, then solve it. Same goes for the LU gen. If you want, you can go to the tab above the scramble with WCA written in cstimer, scroll down to 3x3 subsets, then select RU gen or LU gen.
3.) The Solve Split Drill
Basically, you scramble the cube, plan cross or cross+1, close your eyes and solve it, check if you solved cross/cross+1, then plan the next three F2L pairs, solve it blindfolded or while closing your eyes, then finish it with OLL and PLL. Pretty simple but it helped me become sub-10.
4.) Timing your splits
Go to cstimer, and then go to settings. In the timer section, look for multi-phase. Press the addition button to increase and the subtraction button to decrease.
You can use this to time the steps in your solves. This is really helpful and can be used for all events.

I hope this helped, and stay tuned because I am going to make more sub-x threads!
Thanks for reminding me that video, I tried to do it as well in July, but I did it for 2x2, 3x3 and 4x4, and I was burnt out, so I stopped, but because I know this, I might try it for January for 1 or 2 events
 
Update: Another thing i forgot to mention was deliberate practice. A good way to do this is to record your solves and then review it. You should see mistakes and all kinds of bad habits that you can fix. Also, slow down the playback speed to see the smaller mistakes like unnecessary U moves. Note these mistakes down somewhere and try to fix it. From there, you can find videos and see what they say you should do, and look for the most apparent weakness in your solves. I will also be accepting critiques now! Just DM me and I will help you improve
 
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