My Tips for Becoming Color Neutral

[Sahid Velji]

Appreciate the video! I will try this as my purpose is to have fun. Really when you solve on the same color every time, you're doing it without thinking much. I kind of get bored and this video has encouraged me to at the LEAST use my opposite color as well.

 

[jskyler91]

Appreciate the video! I will try this as my purpose is to have fun. Really when you solve on the same color every time, you're doing it without thinking much. I kind of get bored and this video has encouraged me to at the LEAST use my opposite color as well.

Very true, I hope this helps you to transition. Even if you only end up doing two colors it will be a huge change in the way you cube and give you a large advantage over your older cubing self.

 

[Weston]

Really now, I have never seen that before. I would think it would be the opposite. In its simplest form trying to be color neutral is a way to practice going slower and mastering what you know in all environments/colors. This is a chance to work on turnign slower and looking ahead more and getting more comfortable with what you know. Maybe it didn't work because you are focusing on it way too much, like I said in the video, switching doesn't mean you have to stop learning other things, it just means you should try to apply them while doing others colors. If you can do a new f2l pair on all color then I think you have it. Just relax and practice a colors for about five days each with a few practice days of all colors. How did you used to try being color neutral?

I have tried cold turkey and one color at a time.
Even after I try to practice solving with a yellow cross, when I go back to white I put my edges in backwards, put pairs in the wrong slots, or just make outright wrong pairs.

 

[jskyler91]

I have tried cold turkey and one color at a time.
Even after I try to practice solving with a yellow cross, when I go back to white I put my edges in backwards, put pairs in the wrong slots, or just make outright wrong pairs.

Lol, how long consecutively did you try to change? I.e. how many days in a row did you try CN non stop and did you do white as well or did you just try adding one new color at a time?

 

[Cool Frog]

Lol, how long consecutively did you try to change? I.e. how many days in a row did you try CN non stop and did you do white as well or did you just try adding one new color at a time?

there is a big difference between White and Yellow crosses, to a well practiced user this stands out since when you use yellow, the orange and red sides are swapped, and the "natural" orientation of the cube is flipped.

It would be similar to forcing a BLDer to using a cube off by a z2 as his new orientation, then switching back after he gets used to it.

 

[solved]

This just makes me so glad I have always been color neutral. I guess the DB method wasn't ENTIRELY horrible.

 

[Weston]

Lol, how long consecutively did you try to change? I.e. how many days in a row did you try CN non stop and did you do white as well or did you just try adding one new color at a time?

About a week each time.
For "cold turkey" I included white. For "one color at a time" I obviously didn't.

Anyway, I think that there are much better investments that you can make other than color neutrality. I think just learning a bunch of F2L tricks would be much more beneficial, or even just practicing OLLs and PLLs until you can consistently do them sub 1 in solves.
When people try to be color neutral, they're basically trying to get around the difficulty of predicting the first F2L pair when you have a long cross. Well, you could always just practice predicting the first F2L pair, or practice finding more optimal cross solutions, or practice looking ahead while you're solving. I'm not a big fan of trying to get around a problem instead of just tackling the problem head-on. For example, for OH solving, I am an advocate of practicing your two-handed algorithms one-handed instead of learning a bunch of one-handed OLLs and PLLs. That way your one-handed dexterity improves and you become better at turning one-handed in general. This way your one-handed speed isn't limited by the availability of good one-handed algorithms since you are used to incorporating awkward turns in your turning style. Obviously there are some exceptions to this, but I think in general time is better spent practicing than trying to learn new things.

 

[jskyler91]

there is a big difference between White and Yellow crosses, to a well practiced user this stands out since when you use yellow, the orange and red sides are swapped, and the "natural" orientation of the cube is flipped.

It would be similar to forcing a BLDer to using a cube off by a z2 as his new orientation, then switching back after he gets used to it.

True, that is something that practice will help eliminate, hense why I didn't make a video saying you can be color neutral in one day or even a week. Where you trying to say more here or where you just pointing this completely valid point out?

 

[Cool Frog]

Trying to explain why one would get slower at white cross after practicing yellow.

Anyway, I think that there are much better investments that you can make other than color neutrality. I think just learning a bunch of F2L tricks would be much more beneficial, or even just practicing OLLs and PLLs until you can consistently do them sub 1 in solves.

 

[jskyler91]

About a week each time.
For "cold turkey" I included white. For "one color at a time" I obviously didn't.

Anyway, I think that there are much better investments you can make other than color neutrality. I think just learning a bunch of F2L tricks would be much more beneficial, or even just practicing OLLs and PLLs until you can consistently do them sub 1 in solves.

Oh, I completely agree that there will always be other things that you can practice, but at one point you will reach your limit and I believe that limit is lower (in times) for color neutral persons. At that point you would probably want to change and if that is so then why don't you do it now when it will be easier and you are less set in your ways? Plus I think you underestimate the value of a shorter and easier cross, as I said in my video; a shorter and easier cross means a better cross to f2l transition, higher chances of finding your first pairs, smoother and more confident solves and just a better solve all around.

A good solve, at least for me can be the difference of an 16 to a 10. Seeing as how I have greater chances at good solves because my cross was easier, then I am actually probably cutting off a few seconds by being color neutral. Now obviously the gains are smaller when you are faster but still, a half second off of your average is still the difference between a 10 average and a 9 average or a 7 and a 6

Also, to your not succeeding, I again qoute the stats you can find on google, that it takes, on average 30 days to break a new habit, so if you only spend 7 that is not enough.

 

[Weston]

Oh, I completely agree that there will always be other things that you can practice, but at one point you will reach your limit and I believe that limit is lower (in times) for color neutral persons. At that point you would probably want to change and if that is so then why don't you do it now when it will be easier and you are less set in your ways? Plus I think you underestimate the value of a shorter and easier cross, as I said in my video; a shorter and easier cross means a better cross to f2l transition, higher chances of finding your first pairs, smoother and more confident solves and just a better solve all around.

A good solve, at least for me can be the difference of an 16 to a 10. Seeing as how I have greater chances at good solves because my cross was easier, then I am actually probably cutting off a few seconds by being color neutral. Now obviously the gains are smaller when you are faster but still, a half second off of your average is still the difference between a 10 average and a 9 average or a 7 and a 6

Also, to your not succeeding, I again qoute the stats you can find on google, that it takes, on average 30 days to break a new habit, so if you only spend 7 that is not enough.

I added stuff to my post, but I'll post the stuff I added here to make sure that you see it.

When people try to be color neutral, they're basically trying to get around the difficulty of predicting the first F2L pair when you have a long cross. Well, you could always just practice predicting the first F2L pair, or practice finding more optimal cross solutions, or practice looking ahead while you're solving. I'm not a big fan of trying to get around a problem instead of just tackling the problem head-on. For example, for OH solving, I am an advocate of practicing your two-handed algorithms one-handed instead of learning a bunch of one-handed OLLs and PLLs. That way your one-handed dexterity improves and you become better at turning one-handed in general. This way your one-handed speed isn't limited by the availability of good one-handed algorithms since you are used to incorporating awkward turns in your turning style. Obviously there are some exceptions to this, but I think in general time is better spent practicing than trying to learn new things.

Also, to your not succeeding, I again qoute the stats you can find on google, that it takes, on average 30 days to break a new habit, so if you only spend 7 that is not enough.

Yes, but I'm not talking about my inability to solve on new colors. I'm talking about my inability to solve on my old color.

 

[jskyler91]

I added stuff to my post, but I'll post the stuff I added here to make sure that you see it.

I like your approach to cubing, mine is very similar, I always try to do what is necessary to get fast, not what is easy. I would also agree that practicing your look ahead is very valuable and I am not saying that you should be color neutral so that you can not practice your look ahead, I am saying you should be color neutral so that you can have even better look ahead and more opportunities to use that lookahead to look further into the solve. I do both, I am color neutral and I practice my look ahead cross memo a lot. My point is why would I want to practice my look ahead a bunch to only be able to predict one pair on hard crosses when I could use that same lookahead CN and lookahead to two pairs? Being color neutral only helps to aid your lookahead and gives you more opportunities to benefit from it.

Yes, but I'm not talking about my inability to solve on new colors. I'm talking about my inability to solve on my old color.

Right, I think you loss in the white color was because you didn't properly transition into CN which lead you to get completely confused and mess up everything. If you don't fully do it right then you will obviously see some negative effects. Imagine if I tried to get a sex change, but I only stopped half way, don't you think I would be a little messed up? I realize this was an ab absurdium argument, but it is the same idead with this, you need to do it right or you might just end up frustrated and confused.

 

[Cool Frog]

Right, I think you loss in the white color was because you didn't properly transition into CN which lead you to get completely confused and mess up everything. If you don't fully do it right then you will obviously see some negative effects. Imagine if I tried to get a sex change, but I only stopped half way, don't you think I would be a little messed up? I realize this was an ab absurdium argument , but it is the same idead with this, you need to do it right or you might just end up frustrated and confused.

And even after you where don't you couldn't go back because things have changed so much.

 

[jskyler91]

And even after you where don't you couldn't go back because things have changed so much.

Not sure if you joking, if you are ha ha, if not then not quite, you can go back and relearn to be color fixed (obviously he (Weston) did it). I think this is why so many people get frustrated about going to CN , because they try once in a less than optimal way, and then get so screwed up and annoyed that they just think it is impossible. It isn't guys, you just need a better method. This is just like when people said it was impossible to do a solve in less than 10 seconds a long time ago, many people had tried but they couldn't do it so they thought it was impossible. What was wrong? they weren't doing the right method (I am talking about the old lbl ers and stuff).

 

[Mollerz]

I am a colour neutral solver, I've been colour neutral since I started cubing about half a year ago and my suggestion is, if you are new to cubing, pick Colour Neutral, Opposite Neutral, or single colour cross dependant on what you feel you will do the best with. There are advantages with all of them.

Single Colour Cross users will quickly get used to doing "bad" crosses. I say quote it because it may be longer but it is not necessarily less beneficial than a shorter cross because after the cross, there is still 4 F2L pairs, OLL and PLL (Assuming CFOP). You could save that half a second from that longer cross from easier F2L pairs or less rotations of the cube. With single colour you also know exactly what pieces you are looking for and you know where they go regardless because rather than a filter the non-cross colour pieces out. From doing these bad crosses, when you do get a good cross you get much faster solves also. You also get "increased" inspection time and can plan for better crosses better because as you start inspection you ALREADY know what cross colour you are doing so you can look for the edge pieces, and lookahead to the first F2L pairs or plan Xcrosses because you have that "extra" time you spend looking for a good cross.

Colour Neutral, obviously you can look for all the crosses but this DOES take time, even if it is just 2 or 3 seconds, that is 2-3 seconds less to plan a cross. You get easier crosses more often than not but when you do get 6 non-obviously good crosses, you have to do a bad cross, and you won't necessarily be practiced for these bad crosses. For me, I've been colour neutral since the beginning so I am going back to single colours to work on getting used to bad crosses and practice forcing Xcrosses, then when I go back to colour neutral I will be able to pick up some easy Xcrosses I may not have noticed before.

Personally, I think Opposite Neutral is the best, it gets the best of both worlds and if you are opposite neutral from the start then it should work very nicely at least I think. It isn't that hard for people who struggle with colour neutrality but it's not that far of a step up from just a single solve.

Now, in response the the response video:

You literally have no idea how hard it is to switch when you are faster. You switched at 30 seconds, and now you are faster you are like, oh yeah CN is easy because I can do it, doesn't take too long to switch. No **** you can say it's easy to switch if you are CN already because we already can do it and we can see "everything". When you are fast, it is HARD to switch, and there is literally no proof that colour neutral is better. Ok, Faz and Rowe are colour neutral and they are ranked as #1 and #2 in the average rankings but look at the rest of the top 10.

3. Piti Pichedpan (ปิติ พิเชษฐพันธ์) - White
4. Cornelius Dieckmann - White
5. Giovanni Contardi - Orange
6. Michał Pleskowicz - Yellow/White
7. Breandan Vallance - Yellow
8. Kanneti Sae Han - Orange
9. Yu Nakajima - Blue (On Japanese Colour Scheme)
10. Mats Valk - Blue

The last I checked these were their cross colours, if I am wrong, whatever, most of them are still right nonetheless. Even if you continue down the only other colour neutral cuber for a while is Robert Yau. All of these CN cubers have been such from a very early stage. And there are no fast CN cubers that have switched from a single/opposite scheme and that has been said before many times.

Breandan IS trying to swap to colour neutral at the moment because he does not believe he will get any faster if he stays on yellow cross only. Only time will tell if he does get faster and we will be able to see how long it does take for him to get faster.

I'm going to go ahead and say, if you are not a brand new cuber, I would not recommend this at all, stick with what you know. If you are new then do try all colours, find which style whether it be a single colour cross, colour neutrality or opposite neutrality suits you best.

EDIT: It does seem as if you ARE trying to force colour neutrality onto people. You are telling them to try it before giving a valid reason not to switch. If you are beyond the realm of even 25 seconds, then it is a waste of your time switching if it takes you longer than a month. It seems colour neutrality is something you pick up naturally and is very difficult to actually learn how to do once you are fast already with a single colour or opposite scheme.

 

[jskyler91]

I am a colour neutral solver, I've been colour neutral since I started cubing about half a year ago and my suggestion is, if you are new to cubing, pick Colour Neutral, Opposite Neutral, or single colour cross dependant on what you feel you will do the best with. There are advantages with all of them.

Single Colour Cross users will quickly get used to doing "bad" crosses. I say quote it because it may be longer but it is not necessarily less beneficial than a shorter cross because after the cross, there is still 4 F2L pairs, OLL and PLL (Assuming CFOP). You could save that half a second from that longer cross from easier F2L pairs or less rotations of the cube. With single colour you also know exactly what pieces you are looking for and you know where they go regardless because rather than a filter the non-cross colour pieces out. From doing these bad crosses, when you do get a good cross you get much faster solves also. You also get "increased" inspection time and can plan for better crosses better because as you start inspection you ALREADY know what cross colour you are doing so you can look for the edge pieces, and lookahead to the first F2L pairs or plan Xcrosses because you have that "extra" time you spend looking for a good cross.

Colour Neutral, obviously you can look for all the crosses but this DOES take time, even if it is just 2 or 3 seconds, that is 2-3 seconds less to plan a cross. You get easier crosses more often than not but when you do get 6 non-obviously good crosses, you have to do a bad cross, and you won't necessarily be practiced for these bad crosses. For me, I've been colour neutral since the beginning so I am going back to single colours to work on getting used to bad crosses and practice forcing Xcrosses, then when I go back to colour neutral I will be able to pick up some easy Xcrosses I may not have noticed before.

Personally, I think Opposite Neutral is the best, it gets the best of both worlds and if you are opposite neutral from the start then it should work very nicely at least I think. It isn't that hard for people who struggle with colour neutrality but it's not that far of a step up from just a single solve.

Now, in response the the response video:

You literally have no idea how hard it is to switch when you are faster. You switched at 30 seconds, and now you are faster you are like, oh yeah CN is easy because I can do it, doesn't take too long to switch. No **** you can say it's easy to switch if you are CN already because we already can do it and we can see "everything". When you are fast, it is HARD to switch, and there is literally no proof that colour neutral is better. Ok, Faz and Rowe are colour neutral and they are ranked as #1 and #2 in the average rankings but look at the rest of the top 10.

3. Piti Pichedpan (ปิติ พิเชษฐพันธ์) - White
4. Cornelius Dieckmann - White
5. Giovanni Contardi - Orange
6. Michał Pleskowicz - Yellow/White
7. Breandan Vallance - Yellow
8. Kanneti Sae Han - Orange
9. Yu Nakajima - Blue (On Japanese Colour Scheme)
10. Mats Valk - Blue

The last I checked these were their cross colours, if I am wrong, whatever, most of them are still right nonetheless. Even if you continue down the only other colour neutral cuber for a while is Robert Yau. All of these CN cubers have been such from a very early stage. And there are no fast CN cubers that have switched from a single/opposite scheme and that has been said before many times.

Breandan IS trying to swap to colour neutral at the moment because he does not believe he will get any faster if he stays on yellow cross only. Only time will tell if he does get faster and we will be able to see how long it does take for him to get faster.

I'm going to go ahead and say, if you are not a brand new cuber, I would not recommend this at all, stick with what you know. If you are new then do try all colours, find which style whether it be a single colour cross, colour neutrality or opposite neutrality suits you best.

Please read this entire thread before posting, i have responded to all that you have said and I have also made a separate video saying that I understand it will be harder if you are faster, but it is in no way impossible. Also just because you can be fast not color neutral doesn't mean you won't be faster not color neutral. I personally believe that those who are at 9 seconds non color neutral would be way faster now had they switched. True not that many fast people are color neutral, but that is because it isn't popular, that doesn't mean that it isn't still better. Same reason that there aren't any Roux solvers up there, because not enough people have tried it. Color neutral has many more advantages than you listed, read the entire forum for those, and it is all, IMO , an investment. Also, it is your fault that you got pampered by color neutrality and didn't practice hard crosses, this is not the fault of color neutrality in and of itself.

Please don't try posting in a forum that you obviously haven't read. Also, You started out CN, how can you know what it is like to transition?

 

[pjk]

To all: if you don't like the idea, then don't practice it and move on. If you like the idea, try it and post your results. It's okay to disagree. It is just an idea.

Has anyone who uses just a 1 color cross tried to do 5 averages of 100 with each of the 5 other colors (starting with the opposite color and then opposites from there on out)? I'd be curious of the results, and how they decline over each avg of 100.

 

[Mollerz]

Please read this entire thread before posting, i have responded to all that you have said and I have also made a separate video saying that I understand it will be harder if you are faster, but it is in no way impossible. Also just because you can be fast not color neutral doesn't mean you won't be faster not color neutral. I personally believe that those who are at 9 seconds non color neutral would be way faster now had they switched. Color neutral has many more advantages than you listed, read the entire forum for those, and it is all, IMO , an investment. Also, it is your fault that you got pampered by color neutrality and didn't practice hard crosses, this is not the fault of color neutrality in and of itself.

Please don't try posting in a forum that you obviously haven't read. Also, You started out CN, how can you know what it is like to transition?

I have read everything and it does **** me off to see that you are oblivious to what others are saying when they are voicing their opinion and you still try to spew all your misinformation on everyone.

You also clearly haven't read what I have written as well because I never said I was held back by colour neutrality, I just never practiced harder crosses because I rarely, if ever, got them. I'm around 16-17 seconds at the moment and I've only been cubing half a year or so, I've never really done any specific practice. I don't practice crosses, I don't drill LL algs, I just solve a lot. That's why I'm "stuck" with an 8-10 second F2L and a 4-8 second LL, and a lot of that F2L is actually executing my cross. But I've saved a few seconds just by being CN. I can go and drill LL algs and practice crosses, Xcrosses and the like by sticking to a certain colour and learning a few F2L algorithms for cases I do badly intuitively and that will undoubtedly make me faster.

Also, I didn't really start CN, I just realised after a few days of solving that I might as well learn to do it on all colours, since I was slow anyway I thought there would be an advantage to learning how to solve on all crosses so I've been CN from a very early stage, but when I started I learnt full PLL (Without GPerms, which I subsequently learnt the next day) and intuitive F2L on my first day, so my first few timed solves on my 2nd day of being a "speedcuber" was about 40 seconds, which was pretty much as slow as you were since at that speed, 5-10 seconds is very little in reality. You cannot really say you know what it is like to transition either since you were slow as well.

And please, humour me and everyone else and list all the advantages of being Colour Neutral, briefly and concisely in a simple list so we can see what these "advantages" are.

 

[jskyler91]

I have read everything and it does **** me off to see that you are oblivious to what others are saying when they are voicing their opinion and you still try to spew all your misinformation on everyone.

You also clearly haven't read what I have written as well because I never said I was held back by colour neutrality, I just never practiced harder crosses because I rarely, if ever, got them. I'm around 16-17 seconds at the moment and I've only been cubing half a year or so, I've never really done any specific practice. I don't practice crosses, I don't drill LL algs, I just solve a lot. That's why I'm "stuck" with an 8-10 second F2L and a 4-8 second LL, and a lot of that F2L is actually executing my cross. But I've saved a few seconds just by being CN. I can go and drill LL algs and practice crosses, Xcrosses and the like by sticking to a certain colour and learning a few F2L algorithms for cases I do badly intuitively and that will undoubtedly make me faster.

Also, I didn't really start CN, I just realised after a few days of solving that I might as well learn to do it on all colours, since I was slow anyway I thought there would be an advantage to learning how to solve on all crosses so I've been CN from a very early stage, but when I started I learnt full PLL (Without GPerms, which I subsequently learnt the next day) and intuitive F2L on my first day, so my first few timed solves on my 2nd day of being a "speedcuber" was about 40 seconds, which was almost as slow as you were. You cannot really say you know what it is like to transition either since you were slow as well.

And please, humour me and everyone else and list all the advantages of being Colour Neutral, briefly and concisely in a simple list so we can see what these "advantages" are.

Wow, you are quite firey about this, I am just going to end this before it starts and say you are perfectly allowed to voice your concerns, but do so informedly. I responded to all of the claims you made in previous parts of the thread. I feel no need to respond to your asking for a list of the advantages as I say them in my video and in detail on many pages here. Also, I don't care if you wish to use ****'s to curse at me, but just so you realize, ****'s just make you look rather immature and show how short tempered you are. This is a simple discussion man, relax.

Also, congrats on your quick progress!!

 

[Edward_Lin]

I've been CN ever since I started cubing about 4 years ago and I avg about 10.5. Honestly, I don't think it is that beneficial. While it is true that I get a few amazing solves once awhile because of an easy cross, I usually spend most of my inspection deciding which cross is the easiest. Most of the time I feel like all the crosses are all equally bad. I think the best way to go is just dual neutrality. You can find your cross quicker and have more time to plan the first pair. I think I can be faster if I stopped being CN