[Unofficial] Michael Womack's cubing videos

That thread is Robert Yau's original proposition of his 4x4 method. People related Yau's proposed method to K4, movecounts were near those of the reigning Reduction method, and Yau became more and more feasible as a speedsolving method.

Your proposed 4x4 method has no potential in the speedsolving realm. If in three years I'm very wrong, I vow to apologise.

This is going a bit off topic but when I first watched Erik's 40 or 41 second solve which involved solving cross + centres, then finish edge pairing, I thought perhaps this could have some potential. (Sorry I can't link the video, I can't watch it for some reason, I know it's on youtube.) I wanted to find a way of giving the method more structure, since iirc Erik didn't really propose a way of edge pairing. I didn't really think about move count that much because Erik got a 40/41 second solve which is really fast back in 2008/2009, so I doubted that whatever the average move count is, it wouldn't matter too much. What annoyed me about edge pairing with standard reduction is the rotations and looking ahead. I found a way to reduce the number of rotations and make looking ahead easier. Let's assume we (pl.) already know how the method works. But why is it so successful? How are Mats/Sebastian/Dan Cohen/Erik/Milan etc able to achieve fast times (apart from their ability to turn fast)? If you ask me, it's because after the cross is completed, we never have to look for edges in that layer for the remainder of the solve. Then after 3 more edges have been paired up, we never have to search in the back slots for edges. This means that we only have look at the upper and front faces for pieces when we are finishing the edge pairing step. This helps us to make looking ahead easier and pause less. I think Dan Cohen and maybe Sebastian tweaked the method a little bit so that you do most of the turning with your dominant hand during edge pairing. I would've given up on this method if it wasn't for Dan's and Sebastian's perserverance and official success.

Similarly with any 3x3x3 method involving F2L and the Roux method, we are continuously solving pieces in such a way, that we keep eliminating places for searching pieces, which again makes it easier for us to look ahead and pause less, saving time.

Michael, the "method" which you have "proposed" doesn't make it easy for people to look ahead nor does it seem efficient enough to me. I'm with Ranzha. This method has barely any potential. You or someone else has to find a way of making it more efficient and more easier to look ahead. Also if I am wrong, I also vow to apologise, but a new (and fast) method would be cool to play around with.

tl;dr Eliminating places to search for pieces makes it easier for the cuber to look ahead and pause less, saving time. Womack's method fails to do this and isn't efficient enough imo.
 
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4x4 method that I made a while ago when I averaged 1:30ish. I averaged 1:30 with this method and reduction at the time.

2 adjacent centres
edge between them
3rd adjacent centre
3x3x3 block
4th centre
3x3x4 block
rest of F2L
LL+parity
 
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