O HAI

[cathulhu]

Hey cubers,

I just started just a few days ago, and I can't put down the cube. I'm really having fun learning ZZ and trying to beat my horribly slow (~140s) solves
Hopefully I'll improve over time.

Nice forum btw, it's nice to see the frequent activity!

 

[DeeDubb]

Welcome aboard! I'm sure you will find plenty of help. Don't worry, your times will drop very fast. Just keep practicing. Also, look around a lot for advice on the forum and the wiki. I don't know anything about ZZ, so I can't help you there, but I know there's quite a few active ZZ posters on the forum, so your questions will get answered quickly.

 

[Rocky0701]

Hello and welcome to the forums, I as well can't tell you much about ZZ, but the Wiki is an awesome recourse which helped me when i was learning, and still does. Your times with go down very quickly if you just say confident and practice. Good luck!

 

[nikhil647]

Welcome to the forum,there is a How to get fast with ZZ method thread,you might want to check that out.

 

[guysensei1]

Why do you have zero posts? This is weird.

Welcome! Check out Phil Yu's tutorials. I think they're great.

 

[cubingawsumness]

ZZ! Welcome.
Just my opinion: If you haven't learned how to do CFOP F2L (intuitively), I think you should learn it and get decent at it before continuing to practice ZZ. Although (CFOP) F2L is often seen as easier than ZZ (or Roux) blockbuilding, it really is very similar, and will overall give you a better understanding of how pieces move around.
If you have learned CFOP, and are switching to ZZ, hurrah! ^Phil's videos are indeed very good. Ask questions if you have any

 

[cathulhu]

Why do you have zero posts? This is weird.

Indeed, that's quite strange... maybe I should change my nick to black hole?

there is a How to get fast with ZZ method thread,you might want to check that out

Thanks for the suggestion, I've seen it, and I'm working hard on step 0 (yay!).
My (purple) weilong just arrived yesterday, and I'm experimenting with custom colors, that needs a bit of getting used to.
The cube I was learning on before is a really old one, guessing from the build and the color scheme which seems like japanese, but with the red and orange swapped.
anyway, I had issues with the red and orange being too similar, so I though why not try completly new colors
I'll post my color scheme in a few days if I'll be satisfied with it.

Check out Phil Yu's tutorials. I think they're great.

I've seen them even before I had a cube, they're indeed very nice, they helped me a great deal.

If you have learned CFOP, and are switching to ZZ, hurrah!

Nope, I started with ZZ right away, after reading a bit about it in the 'beginners guide to choosing a speedsolving method' thread. I really liked the idea of a 3 gen (+ rotationless) f2l, and a "fewer alg" LL.

Just my opinion: If you haven't learned how to do CFOP F2L (intuitively), I think you should learn it and get decent at it before continuing to practice ZZ. Although (CFOP) F2L is often seen as easier than ZZ (or Roux) blockbuilding, it really is very similar, and will overall give you a better understanding of how pieces move around.

As little as I know about cfop it really seems similar, so maybe I'll try it later on. Right now I'm at the point where I'm starting to get a feel for all the pairs and blocks, and it's a really good feeling. A few days before I was really struggling with my last pair/block, but now it's so much easier, I can definitely see some progress there.

---

As for my plans for the next few weeks:

• practice lots
• really know my colors from heart
• find a way to practice EOLine effectively
• train my left hand fingers
• try to get down H, U, T and Z perms with the M slice

The M slice feels rather strange for now, but I really like the idea of doing the edge perms with it, so hopefully I'll find a way that suits me.

As for my left hand, it's always terrible to see how dominant my right hand is (I even bat from the left in softball, etc), so I really need to work hard on that.
What I'm doing right now is really paying attention on using the "right" fingers while scrambling, hopefully that will slowly build up some fingertrick muscle memory for starters. I've seen one of Phil's videos about 'getting a little load off the dominant hand' with doing F2 with the left hand for example, and that seems a really reasonable thing to do.

Regarding the EOLine: it usually takes up ~half of my time, so at least I know where I can improve a great deal. I guess that takes practice, practice and some more practice...

As for long term goals: from what I've seen, the Hungarian Open is held around october-november every year, so It would be great to get to be a "somewhat of a decent solver" around that time.
I'd also like to try the skewb and the pyraminx, and 3BLD in a few months.

---

Thanks for the warm welcome, guys, I really appreciate it
Please feel free to keep the suggestions coming!

(Also as you've probably guessed, I'm not a native english speaker, so please forgive/correct my mistakes! )

 

[stoic]

Why do you have zero posts? This is weird.

Introductions don't count.

Anyway, OP: welcome to the forums! I have no doubt your times will come down quickly.

 

[Petro Leum]

damn, finally someone who uses ZZ as their first method youre gonna get used to proper blockbuilding and ****.... awesome!


EDIT: you gonna do 1 orientation, 2 or color neutral?

 

[cathulhu]

you gonna do 1 orientation, 2 or color neutral?

Once I'll get more comfortable with the EO, I think I'll try working towards Y axis neutrality, and see how that goes. I can't see myself being fully color neutral, but maybe I can handle the cases if the top and the bottom is fixed.
It would be interesting to know that if an orientation has n misoriented edges, than after doing an y/y' how will n change... I'm gonna think on that a little

 

[DeeDubb]

damn, finally someone who uses ZZ as their first method youre gonna get used to proper blockbuilding and ****.... awesome!

Actually, this is really interesting. I'm a rare Roux first method user, so hopefully he can be my ZZ counterpart. Now we just need someone to start off with Petrus

 

[brian724080]

Welcome to the forums, you'll get used to blockbuilding F2L in no time.

 

[ryanj92]

Once I'll get more comfortable with the EO, I think I'll try working towards Y axis neutrality, and see how that goes. I can't see myself being fully color neutral, but maybe I can handle the cases if the top and the bottom is fixed.
It would be interesting to know that if an orientation has n misoriented edges, than after doing an y/y' how will n change... I'm gonna think on that a little

answer in the spoiler

Spoiler

the four middle layer edges change orientation with a y/y' rotation. logically, the edges that could be solved with R, L U or D before rotating are now solvable with F, B, U and D (because an R/L move becomes a F/B move following a 90 degree y rotation), and vice versa, so using the 'bad edge' definition, the good middle layer edges become bad, and the bad ones become good

 

[Petro Leum]

Once I'll get more comfortable with the EO, I think I'll try working towards Y axis neutrality, and see how that goes. I can't see myself being fully color neutral, but maybe I can handle the cases if the top and the bottom is fixed.
It would be interesting to know that if an orientation has n misoriented edges, than after doing an y/y' how will n change... I'm gonna think on that a little

although it would totally **** up your learning curve, starting out with y axis neutrality should wield better results... switching is always hard.

 

[TDM]

although it would totally **** up your learning curve, starting out with y axis neutrality should wield better results... switching is always hard.

I agree with this; the earlier you start the better.
I would actually suggest not practising CFOP F2L though; you'll get used to pairing the E layer edge with the corner first most of the time. When doing F2L, pair the corners with either of the edges first; don't get used to doing it with the same one every time!

 

[brian724080]

I agree with this; the earlier you start the better.
I would actually suggest not practising CFOP F2L though; you'll get used to pairing the E layer edge with the corner first most of the time. When doing F2L, pair the corners with either of the edges first; don't get used to doing it with the same one every time!

Also, you'll be facing the dilemma of whether a hard EOLine + fluent F2L is better than easy EOLine + F2L with recognition problems

 

[guysensei1]

Actually, this is really interesting. I'm a rare Roux first method user, so hopefully he can be my ZZ counterpart. Now we just need someone to start off with Petrus

Not sure if it counts, but my very first solve ever (albeit guided by my friend) was with petrus. I quickly switched to 'beginner's method' though.

 

[DeeDubb]

Not sure if it counts, but my very first solve ever (albeit guided by my friend) was with petrus. I quickly switched to 'beginner's method' though.

I've been playing around with a modified Petrus method (doing 3x2x1 Roux style, then adding the two middle edges for 3x2x2) I want to use Petrus for big cubes, because mid slicing is rough. Petrus is really fun though, and I think it's quite underrated. It cuts out the need to memorize all OLL because your cross is always done when you get to LL. That will definitely be my second method.

 

[cathulhu]

Also, you'll be facing the dilemma of whether a hard EOLine + fluent F2L is better than easy EOLine + F2L with recognition problems

Hm, why is that?

It cuts out the need to memorize all OLL because your cross is always done when you get to LL.

True for ZZ too

I would actually suggest not practising CFOP F2L though; you'll get used to pairing the E layer edge with the corner first most of the time. When doing F2L, pair the corners with either of the edges first; don't get used to doing it with the same one every time!

I'm definately going to do some slow solves to see if I do it in a fix routine or not, thanks for the warning
Hopefully I can eliminate the bad habits early on.

 

[sneaklyfox]

Welcome!

(I think posts don't count in the off-topic sub-forum.)