My progress.

[rei]

Okay about two weeks ago I was just starting with fridrich had the cross olls and half the plls memorized and was pretty bad with F2L. My average was probably about a minute and a half. Also, I didn't understand finger tricks at all.

Now my average is around 50s and I somehow managed this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUvYl9NcGMo. I'm working on learning the rest of the OLLs (only have squares and lightning bolts so far but yeah) and I got, for me, really good at finger tricks. I can do the T permutation in about 2.5 seconds for example.

I'd like to know what I should really be focusing on, based on the video and what I've told you, things I'm doing right, things I'm doing wrong, things I'm not doing at all, etc. Just in general: How am I doing?

 

[Neutrals01]

hmm...at least have ur video at a brighter place...can't even see a thing...so dark =.="

 

[JLarsen]

hmm...at least have ur video at a brighter place...can't even see a thing...so dark =.="

I definitely agree, I mean I couldn't even tell what method you were using. I saw an f2l i think, but that's about all. I couldn't see your technique or anything. Consider making another vid because people can really, truly help you with a video of you.

 

[rei]

yeah i know. It was actually perfectly fine on my camera but it got super dark when I uploaded it to my computer. Getting a good camera angle can be tricky too.

 

[Athefre]

Record outside, very good lighting out there.

 

[rei]

okay, this took a while to get another video I liked. It's a LOT worse but better represetative of my skill because its around my average:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fT3QKaGPbl0

self-inspection
I need to get better at the opening cross.
During F2L I tend to nervously turn the U face when I can't find a pair to connect. I turned it like 4 times in a row during that video. In other words, I need to learn to look ahead.
I need to be faster at PLL recognition. (in the video it was the corner swap one, I don't know all the abbreviations you people use)

Unfortunately, my hands shake a lot whenever I'm trying to make a video and I make some bad turns.

ps check out my ghetto green sticker. I'm pretty proud of that ;]

 

[Neutrals01]

1st. Try to use some simple fingertricks...twisting the layers with ur wrist slows u down a lot...I can see that ur f2l part is slowed down a lot by twisting with ur wrist..

2nd. OLL part... try not to rotate the cube to look for the pattern. Instead, do U or U' turns to look for the pattern... since later u r also going to do pll, so the U / U' turns will not affect ur solve. Just imagine the amount of time needed for one cube rotation = 1.5 to 2 turns.. turning U = 1 turn..

3rd. Try to learn some fingertricks for pll so that you can perform it faster..

 

[Raffael]

I think your pll was an E perm.

Have you lubed you cube?
It looks rather hard to turn.
Before you can plunge into finger tricks you need a smooth(er) cube.
Don't get me wrong here: You certainly have lots of space to improve in every step of your solve, which is ok, since you are still in the beginning and a lot of improvement will come with practice, but cubing really is much nicer with a cube that doesn't take that much efort to turn.

Keep it going

 

[rei]

It is lubed and turns pretty well as compared to my old one, but I was mainly thinking of getting a new one because of how nasty the stickers got. How does one prevent this from happening or does it just vary from cube to cube? Someone I know has had their cube for a while now (and I think it's the same brand as mine) and none of the stickers are peeling, or the lamination rather.

 

[Raffael]

It'S normal that the stickers of storebought cubes wear off, e.g. the transparent foil comes off first, then the coulored stickers become bad.
You should definetly get some new stickers from
http://cubesmith.com/
Those vinyl-stickers are much better and will last a long time.

 

[rei]

oh wow nice, and that's a lot cheaper than buying a whole new cube. Thanks I'll get some of these and postpone getting a new cube.