• Welcome to SpeedSolving.com — the world’s largest puzzle community!

    You’re currently browsing as a guest, which means you have limited access to discussions, resources, member profiles, and community features.

    Join 50,000+ cubers and puzzle enthusiasts from around the world to ask questions, share solves, improve faster, and be part of the community.

    Registration is free, fast, and easy — create your account today.

    Already a member? Log in here to hide this message and start participating.

Memory Methods

I use my legs to let me know whether the M slice is rotated or not, really don't need it for a single BLD but for multi where I use letter pair images it's helpful.

FOr single 3x3x3 as I finish corner memo, if I have parity I strain my leg to let myself know at the end to do parity :3.
 
Isn't that just images/journey?

In my mind, Images/journey is placing 1-3 images on a location, and having a chain of locations. BUt that may be just how I've thought of it.

On "body memory": I once solved corners, with the thought that each (non-thumb) finger is a corner and every part of the finger was an orientation, and than I pinched my fingers. It didn't work.
 
I've been using my feet to assist in memorizing twisted corners. Because I memorize corners first and solve them last, the twisted ones give me trouble.

I angle my foot to the right (CW) or left (CCW). I use my right foot if the corner is on the R face and my left foot if it is on the L face. Obviously this technique is best for only one twisted corner and sometimes two. I'm looking to improve this method by using the angle that my knee is bent at or the position of my foot on the floor, but I haven't decided yet.
 
Over the last week I have found that (if I am not confident in memoing the twists visually) using letter pairs works very well for me.
1st letter is where to pick up the sticker (typically the easiest set up move)
2nd letter is where to put it back
 
Last edited:
Over the last week I have found that (if I am not confident in memoing the twists visually) using letter pairs works very well for me.
1st letter is where to pick up the sticker (typically the easiest set up move)
2nd letter is where to put it back

A lot of us use algs that flip the corner instead of shooting to that position twice. It's easy enough to memo a letter pair that indicates the direction the corner must be twisted in, but I'm looking for something faster that won't require an additional image per twisted corner.
 
The key to fast memo (with whatever memo method) is to always rush your memo and not care about DNF-ing too much

if i always rushing my memo(at the moment i need 2-4 minutes for memorizing) so leets think about 50-60 seconds.. i will get no succes il think..(dont tested jyet)
but, how is your experience with this.. ? is it getting better after a tonn oft solves(95--100% rate) or is there everytime a low rate?

please tell me some about this ;)
 
I´ve got a question about memorizing big cubes.
For the 3x3x3 I use letter-pairs for edges and a visual memo for corners. (Memo ~50 sec)
For 4x4x4 I use the same (also letter-pairs for centers) (Memo ~5 min)

These methods work very well. But when I started BLd 5x5x5 I was not able to solve the cube, because I forgotten so much things, switched pairs, ... (Memo ~40 min!!!, because I had to repead a lot of the things several times.)
I´ve done some trys in the last days, but again with a huge memo time and a DNFs.

Should I use the Journey method for the 5x5x5, (or even for the 4x4x4) to get a safe memo? (Or is this just practice and practice and practice?)
 
@poller: Rushing through tons of solves won't improve your accuracy. When practising, take your time, and make sure to get it right. I recommend that you do lots of solves without even timing it at all. Just get comfortable with memoing and execution. Practise, practise, practise. And then later, when timing your solves, you can try rushing memo on some of the scrambles.

@Jakube: Yes, you should look into journey, roman rooms etc. The information you have to memo on a 5x5 is more then what most people can intuitively remember.
 
@poller: You should speed up your memo bit by bit, not going from 2-4 minutes to 50 seconds straight away, because obviously you're gonna DNF most of the time. If it's 2-4 minutes now, try to always make it low 2 minutes, then aim for sub-2, etc. Though at your current speed your slow memo is probably because you're not fully used to memo-ing the cube, or you can't execute braindead yet. At this point you should just get more comfortable with your solves until maybe you can average sub-3 in BLD.
Obviously I wouldn't suggest someone averaging 15mins to just gogo rush memo, I was mainly talking to those averaging in the sub-2 region I guess
 
For speed, visual is far greater then roman rooms for single 3x3x3 yes? Even if I use a letter pair list which makes me have to memo less? I imagine me only needing 3 locations tops for edges on single 3x3x3.

Visual still faster?
 
There's no answer to that, it all depends on one's personal abilities and preference.
I for one can't seem to memo anything purely visually. Thus even roman rooms would be faster than visual, as I would either take a disproportionately long time on the latter, or rush it and then fail.
But using roman rooms on a single 3x3 would most probably slow down someone who is otherwise used to memo visually.
To sum it up: the best memo is what suits you the best, and you have to find out which one that is.
-But roman rooms is usually used for memorising bigger cubes or multi, as most people find that the information one has to remember on a 3x3 is not as much as to require this kind of memo technique.
 
You might as well skip the rooms/locations alltogether for a single solve.
Just work your letter pair images (words) into some sentences without "visualising" the actual image to much. Use the words instead.
 
I was wondering how most people remember flipped edges and twisted corners. I give edges an X, corners that need to be twisted cw an X, and corners that need to be twisted ccw a Z. I'm not sure I want to use my legs or feet to memo this because I cross my legs for parity, and sometimes for difficult letter pairs if the stickers form a pattern on the cube (for example, if I needed to shoot to BR and then to FL, and I couldn't think of a word/image for that, I'd extend my right foot forward, and pull my left foot back, to represent the spots on the cube).

I was wondering how some other BLDers do it :)
 
I make no claims to how effective my method is, but it is what I do.

I only memo these visually, as I have yet to really actually attempt multi (other than some occasional attempts for fun).

For corners I call a corner a "1" corner if I need to rotate it clockwise, and a "2" if I need to rotate it counterclockwise. The number represents how many clockwise twists will return it to solved. I only use these for memorizing groups of 3 corners that twist the same direction. I will tap all 3 corners and then say "1" or "2" for which direction they need to twist.

For a pair of corners that twist in opposite directions I imagine the setup move that will bring them into the same column, then I call that pair an "S" if they appear to twist from inward to outward (UFR rotates counter-clockwise and UBR rotates clockwise would be an "S" pair). I call the pair an "O" pair if they rotate from outwards inwards (UFR rotates clockwise and UBR rotates counter-clockwise would be an "O" pair). The "S" stands for "Same" and the "O" for "Opposite". Look at the U face stickers for each of the examples I listed to see why.

For edges, I just remember the setup moves that bring the edges either adjacent to eachother on the same face, or opposite on the same face. For 4 edges twisted I remember the setup moves that bring them into the shape solved by (M' U)*4 or all onto the same face.

It's probably not the most efficient method out there, but it works well for me on single solves. For multi, I have to be honest that I am still working on that, but there have been a lot of good ideas discussed in this thread recently about this. I'm just trying to find what works best for me.
 
I don't know what to call some things like WB and WG for the story method. Help? (Those aren't the only ones)

I use WB=Web and imagine a giant spider web (like 8-10 feet across).
WG=Wig for me, and I picture a judge in the British legal system, wearing a wig.

If you're just using words, then I use the same words for my sounds list too.
 
I use WB=Web and imagine a giant spider web (like 8-10 feet across).
WG=Wig for me, and I picture a judge in the British legal system, wearing a wig.

If you're just using words, then I use the same words for my sounds list too.

Okay, thx I got the idea. I am thinking about making a list of all the possible words I can make. I am new to BLD and haven't even gotten my first solve...but I understand everything else, just don't want to be in the middle of my first solve and don't know what to call (for example) OG.
 
Back
Top