[Unofficial] It's never too late to switch to pinky (12.913 OH avg5)

[ottozing]

After getting a 13.60 official avg with my god awful turning style, I knew there was no way in hell I would beat that average for two main reasons:

1. Having lots of difficulties getting faster with ring, definitely felt like I hit my limit in terms of tps, only way to improve would just be get better at 2H.
2. Losing interest in OH solving, so didn't really practice as a result. Turning in such an awkward way just wasn't enjoyable.

For those reasons, I decided to switch to pinky. I didn't have any concerns about hindering my official results since, well, my average was as good as I thought I was capable of (or very close to it), so I still used pinky at a few comps even though ring might have been faster. Nowadays, my ring style turning is significantly slower since I haven't practiced it at all since switching, and I'm so much more used to pinky. Similarly, my pinky style turning is very close to what my prime ring speed was in terms of PB avg5/12/50/100.

Before switching, I thought it would take way longer than 5 months to get to the level I'm at, and was also expecting to do much, much more practice than I did (I was actually very on and off with my practice). I think what helped me the most was mostly practicing 2gen one handed stuff, whether it was 2gen solves, or just spamming 2gen algs (R U' U' R' U' R U R' U' R U R' U' R U' R' is a good one, since it teaches your hand coordination for a few key triggers that come up in solves a lot).

If you use a bad turning style for one handed and are thinking about switching, do it. No ifs, no buts. I was a sub 15 one handed solver before I switched, so you can only imagine how strong my turning habits were. If I could successfully match my old times in less than half a year with very inconsistent practice (but good, deliberate practice mind you), I'm sure you could get your times down even quicker than I did

 

[cashis]

Inspirational

 

[Coolster01]

This is beautiful. ;')

 

[Praetorian]

niice stuff

 

[PenguinsDontFly]

Inspirational

hey I was gunna say dat! any goal, cubing or non-cubing related is achievable with determination (and p*a*t*c*). GJay!

 

[Tim Major]

have you signed on ur book deal yet??

 

[Dene]

PINKY IS POWER

 

[biscuit]

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER

FTFY

*starts singing school house rock*

 

[Isaac Lai]

What do you mean by good, deliberate practice?

 

[theROUXbiksCube]

Nice turning style

 

[Berd]

I need to switch to pinky now! Gj!

 

[SenorJuan]

Glad it worked out for you, and it's true that you can change even when it seems 'too late'. I started solving with 'pinky' in 2003, after Hardwick vs Makky inspired me. I liked the idea of keeping the ring finger available to grip the cube. I knew pinkies were more dextrous than the others (extra muscle group), so it seemed like an obvious decision. But after 8 years I got fed up with wrecking my little finger. I was continuously getting slivers of sticker slicing under the edge of the finger-nail, it was often red and inflamed, and I had to rest it, and poke around with tweezers to remove a rainbow of coloured sticker fragments. So three years ago, I changed to ring finger. It took me about 3 months to 'get back', but I'm happy with the result. My ring finger is about 30mm longer than my pinky, and this extra reach is one thing I like.
I keep thinking I ought to be capable of still using my pinky for some extra-dextrous double-finger manoeuvre, but the finger length difference seems to prevent it.
Best of luck.

 

[Ninja Storm]

WE'RE SO PROUD OF YOU JAY