Older cubers discussions

Rastinha said:
Do you guys use any particular apps/software to record all of your averages that I see in your signatures? I downloaded a couple of timers for Android, and one gives my averages out of last 5 and 10, and lifetime, but that was the best I could find so far.
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http://www.cubemania.org is a nice browser based one for keeping long term trends as well as PBs.
On Android, I've switched around a bit but I'm currently liking PlusTimer.

For those of you who have been to competitions, are the young folks pretty accepting of older folks, or are we like the weird old people in the corner? Haha :)
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It's a little bit awkward but the kids are generally really nice and you can always bond more with the parents and the older cubers. I enjoy the comps so much that I'll be hosting my own two months.
 
Rastinha said:
For those of you who have been to competitions, are the young folks pretty accepting of older folks, or are we like the weird old people in the corner? Haha :)
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Everyone's been really nice at the two comps I've been to. That doesn't mean I'm not still the weird old guy in the corner though :).

Brief progress update on my blind ninja project: got my first 3BLD sub-3 today by a mile - 2:37. I'm working on faster memo as that is what is really killing my times. In 4BLD, I'm learning the piece types separately, and had my first centres successes this weekend. My 3x3 speed averages are suffering from lack of practice - haven't had a sub-19 for weeks now! Also bought a new Aosu because I couldn't restore my old one to health, and I want to beat Mike's average at UKC :D
 
mark49152 said:
Everyone's been really nice at the two comps I've been to. That doesn't mean I'm not still the weird old guy in the corner though :).

Brief progress update on my blind ninja project: got my first 3BLD sub-3 today by a mile - 2:37. I'm working on faster memo as that is what is really killing my times. In 4BLD, I'm learning the piece types separately, and had my first centres successes this weekend. My 3x3 speed averages are suffering from lack of practice - haven't had a sub-19 for weeks now! Also bought a new Aosu because I couldn't restore my old one to health, and I want to beat Mike's average at UKC :D
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It is really awesome to see your BLD enthusiasm and mind blowing result (I am talking about MBLD success on first try AT COMPETITION). Keep it up and you will be world class Mark!
 
Rastinha said:
I have a Cyclone Boys stickerless, which is pretty slick but the flexibility get me jammed up. I think I need to practice being more accurate with my turning, but at least my brain is starting to be faster than my hands!

When I have a bit of spare cash I'll probably order a few online, thinking a Gans 357 and maybe a MoYu one, based on my "extensive knowledge" gained from youtube, haha. The closest place I can get them from is Australia by the looks.

Fort Worth, huh? My dad's side of the family lives there :)
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Just tighten the Cyclone Boys and it will be awesome. Thighten up to the point where it will not cut 45 degrees but only 40 or so.. And.. if you go for a Gans, go for the 356. It is waaaay better than the 357. It is my main and I broke all my PB's including PB single.
 
MarcelP said:
It is really awesome to see your BLD enthusiasm and mind blowing result (I am talking about MBLD success on first try AT COMPETITION). Keep it up and you will be world class Mark!
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LOL, cheers, but you've seen how fast those guys are, right? I would struggle to solve Ollie's 25 cubes within the hour with M2/OP sighted, with zero memo time :D. How he and Maskow and others can do so many at such speed is incredible. 41 is an average of <1:28 per cube!

Anyway, even at my level it's nice to have an event with an added dimension of success that isn't just about speed, given that my creaky old fingers are reaching their limit - and it's great fun.

Which comp is it you're going to, Dutch Nationals or Dutch Open? Any goals?
 
mark49152 said:
LOL, cheers, but you've seen how fast those guys are, right?
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Yeah, but you would be better than 95% of the people on your competition. And it will take some while to become world class, but being sub 1 sounds very easy for you.

mark49152 said:
Which comp is it you're going to, Dutch Nationals or Dutch Open? Any goals?
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Both, and I have no goals other than having a nice single PB or so. :) I doubt I will be breaking my 22.xx average because at home with no stress and none shaking hands I am just a tad bit faster :) That 22 average was a great achievement :)
 
MarcelP said:
Both, and I have no goals other than having a nice single PB or so. :) I doubt I will be breaking my 22.xx average because at home with no stress and none shaking hands I am just a tad bit faster :) That 22 average was a great achievement :)
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Having no goals is good, although difficult, since it's hard not to have desires that become goals.

Actually I think this is why I messed up ABHC. At my first comp, I had no expectations - I had no idea how well I would do. So I just relaxed and solved, and it was fine. At ABHC, I put pressure on myself - I had official PBs already, and I wanted to do better. I rushed, my hands went shaky, the solves started getting messy, so I rushed some more. On 2x2 I screwed up four PBLs in five solves. On 3x3 I spasmed and DNFed a J-perm and an R-perm - actually failed to even complete the algs before throwing the cube and smacking the timer. Truly awful.

Except, of course, on BLD, where it was my first time, I had no expectations, relaxed, and it went fine. I hope that doesn't mean at my next comp I will screw up everything! Maybe I should take up Pyraminx or Skewb so that I can do OK at something :D.
 
Rastinha said:
Do you guys use any particular apps/software to record all of your averages that I see in your signatures? I downloaded a couple of timers for Android, and one gives my averages out of last 5 and 10, and lifetime, but that was the best I could find so far.
Click to expand...

For timers, I use KingEn on Android, DCTimer on iOS and csTimer (web timer) on Windows. I just record a summary of each session in Excel (i.e. 1/5/12/50/100/session) so that I can produce stats and graphs once in a while.

Rastinha said:
For those of you who have been to competitions, are the young folks pretty accepting of older folks, or are we like the weird old people in the corner? Haha :)
Click to expand...

Everyone was friendly at the ABHC competition I did with Mark and the same was true when I was filmed at another event last year. Older cubers are definitely in the minority but it's a lot of fun attending a competition.

mark49152 said:
Also bought a new Aosu because I couldn't restore my old one to health, and I want to beat Mike's average at UKC :D
Click to expand...

LOL. I never imagined that average leading up to the ABHC. I've not done much cubing since ABHC but I'm trying to improve my 5x5 skills. :)
 
mark49152 said:
How are you getting on? My very last solve at AHBC was a comedy <MU> U-perm fail where I had to repair the cube intuitively then do a Z-perm. One of my resolutions for the next comp is to learn the <RU> EPLLs.
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Well, I'm faster than I was when I was trying back in February!

I've only done untimed solves this week but not many to be honest. I'll try to do a timed session later this week and let you know how I get on... sub-3:30 is my first goal and my last session was 3:42.
 
Just had my first 4BLD success! Didn't time it though, because I didn't decide to attempt the full solve until after centres memo. Think it was about 30-40 minutes.
 
Hey guys, I had my first practice night averaging sub 40 tonight. I figured I'd share here, because if I post anywhere else no one comments = kids staring at their phone thinking "this guy is really old". [emoji14]

Out of 56 solves, 37 were under 40, and my overall average was 38 something. I was very excited because I had been inching up on 40 seconds average for several days, but not getting under it! I think low was 31 and high 44.xx.

At this point I do not finish solves if I screw them up. Part of my thinking is that as I improve so will my tendency to screw up. For example if I execute the wrong G-Perm I usually just quit, I don't want to count an average with two Perms in it. :) Or once tonight I got to my last F2L pair and saw I had my green-white and blue-white edges swapped... fail! It's kind of a false average to that degree, but I don't care. :)
 
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Jason Green said:
At this point I do not finish solves if I screw them up. Part of my thinking is that as I improve so will my tendency to screw up... It's kind of a false average to that degree, but I don't care. :)
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I've been doing the same thing, but mainly because of my tendency to go "yargh" and get all flustered when I mess up, adding like 10 seconds on, plus the extra move. I'm trying to get more efficient at my F2L as that is quite slow at the moment, so if I mess up before then I usually quit and start again.

Sounds like you had a good session, measurable progress is pretty satisfying huh?

I was giving myself until Thursday to get a time under 1 min, and I got it last night (Tuesday) with a 58.33 - finally milliseconds worth counting! I am also averaging in the 1:07ish region, pretty consistently around that time and only a couple under a minute. BUT I also got lucky with a PLL skip I think this morning and got a 48.09! Pretty happy with that as a PB for less than 2 weeks in.

I filmed a 1:02.xx solve and then edited out all the bits where I sat there thinking and not turning anything, and my solve was around 33 seconds, so I can see heaps of room for improvement just by looking ahead. And my moves are slow as, so need to train up these fingers! I bought a MoYu mini as I have freakishly small hands, to see if that helps at all :P Just have to wait for it to get here from Aussie.
 
MarcelP said:
Just tighten the Cyclone Boys and it will be awesome. Thighten up to the point where it will not cut 45 degrees but only 40 or so.. And.. if you go for a Gans, go for the 356. It is waaaay better than the 357. It is my main and I broke all my PB's including PB single.
Click to expand...

Damn, I bought a 357 because it was cheaper and I watched some videos and the reviews reckoned the 356 was a bit more flexi/less stable. I figured my Cyclone boys one was flexi enough so I would go for one with a different feel. Oh well, next time!
 
I remind about myself. I'm happy Marcel has changed the title of the thread. I'm 41 and I'm in speedcubing for 2 years. With CFOP I'm sub-25 (maybe 22 now) but I've switched Roux and I'm sub-30 - closing to sub-25. I'm focused on blind events: 3bld, 4bld, 5bld and multibld. In 3bld I solve with M2/3style. In multibld I did 7/7. My goal is to make 13 cubes. I hope this gonna happen in few weeks. I'm going to do it after I do 9/9. I like to read the thread but wrote only few posts in here.
 
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