Older cubers discussions
- Thread starter MarcelP
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mafergut
Legend
@JohnnyReggae you have them already stickered in pink and purple??? Very cool color scheme by the way but that means you will not like most stickerless cubes, right? I have a couple 3x3s stickered with pink (Chris Olson color scheme) and I don't have any issues with recognition but I'm not sure that would be the case if I also changed blue with purple.
Nice to see the Linglong besides a 3x3 and realize it's the exact same size. I might buy one
@teacher77 It's normal that, at first, you are a bit slower, until you get used to it, but once you get the grasp of it you will see the advantages of doing cross on bottom. It's the same when changing from LBL to F2L
Nice to see the Linglong besides a 3x3 and realize it's the exact same size. I might buy one
@teacher77 It's normal that, at first, you are a bit slower, until you get used to it, but once you get the grasp of it you will see the advantages of doing cross on bottom. It's the same when changing from LBL to F2L
Shaky Hands
Premium Member
@teacher77, I'd encourage you to keep at it with solving the cross on the bottom. Lookahead will come over time but solving the cross in this way will help you forever without needing to relearn cross methods later on. You will take in the movement of the other cubies better by solving in this way even if it's only knowledge gained subliminally at first.
JohnnyReggae
Veteran
I swapped Pink for Red and Purple for Blue quite a while back. I've gotten used to the recognition and I really like both colours as they contrast well against all the other fluro colours. These days when I order a cube I also order stickers from TheCubicle for them. They both usually take around a month to arrive and I resticker the cubes almost immediately.@JohnnyReggae you have them already stickered in pink and purple??? Very cool color scheme by the way but that means you will not like most stickerless cubes, right? I have a couple 3x3s stickered with pink (Chris Olson color scheme) and I don't have any issues with recognition but I'm not sure that would be the case if I also changed blue with purple.
Nice to see the Linglong besides a 3x3 and realize it's the exact same size. I might buy one
I don't struggle to much using standard colours with recognition, but I do much prefer my colour scheme
mark49152
Premium Member
OK so having looked at the video of yesterday's MBLD, I have figured out how I screwed up that one cube. During edges, I executed two of them as corners! Executed GH corners instead of GH edges! OMG! And then I went on to solve five more edges properly without realising what I had done. What a shocker.
The only way I can explain it is as a lapse in concentration. I don't know what I can do about that. How can you train or practise to improve such things? At least after London I knew how to change my approach to not make the same mistakes again, but on this one, I don't know.
For a start, I have ordered beefier ear muffs as the noise was bothering me more than usual yesterday, and the ones I have are pretty lightweight. I could wear plugs underneath but I don't like them.
The only way I can explain it is as a lapse in concentration. I don't know what I can do about that. How can you train or practise to improve such things? At least after London I knew how to change my approach to not make the same mistakes again, but on this one, I don't know.
For a start, I have ordered beefier ear muffs as the noise was bothering me more than usual yesterday, and the ones I have are pretty lightweight. I could wear plugs underneath but I don't like them.
bubbagrub
Veteran
Yeah, it was noisy. After I finished I tried ssssh-ing a few times, and each time the noise would drop by about 80 decibels and then five seconds later be back to normal. It seems like there must be some way to get a room full of people to just be quiet (or go out) for an hour...
newtonbase
Premium Member
I've given up trying to block out sound. I wonder if there is value in practicing in a noisy environment. Maybe with the TV and radio both on?
newtonbase
Premium Member
BTW that's a bizarre mistake to make @mark49152. I've started corners as edges and vice versa but never switched midway and not noticed.
mark49152
Premium Member
Usually people are very considerate during blind at UK comps and this time it did seem worse. I wonder if it's because the solvers were further away and maybe out of sight. In smaller venues people are usually closer and perhaps more aware of the solvers.
That's a good idea and I've seen that Gianfranco does it. I don't know how effective it is. Either way, I like the idea of owning the problem myself and trying to become more impervious to distraction whether it's by conditioning or hardware. There will always be some comps where noise problems occur.
I know. Maybe I should be more concerned about dementia than noise
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Logiqx
Veteran
Here's an analogy for you regarding practice vs competition. I think tips 3 and 4 are kind of along the same lines as what you've just said in your post. I think the older cubers on this thread have also had enough time to figure out tip 5.
Chris Hardwick mentions somewhere that he used to practice (speedsolving) with distracting noises, including asking his father to surprise him with 'random' things while he was solving.
Maybe comp organisers could illuminate a red light (or whatever) to indicate when BLD was taking place.
Maybe comp organisers could illuminate a red light (or whatever) to indicate when BLD was taking place.
newtonbase
Premium Member
Tasers have red lights on them. Just saying.
mark49152
Premium Member
Yeah I can see the logic in that for the sport he talks about, although I'm not sure how it transposes to cubing. The problem is that my hands behave slightly differently on the day. I don't know how I would recreate those conditions in practice, and it's certainly hard to make my hands behave during comp like they do during practice.Here's an analogy for you regarding practice vs competition. I think tips 3 and 4 are kind of along the same lines as what you've just said in your post. I think the older cubers on this thread have also had enough time to figure out tip 5.
More experienced cubers advise turning slower in comp and that makes a lot of sense. What feels like 80% speed under comp pressure is probably actually normal full speed anyway
Anyhow I'm definitely not using the GuoGuan in comp again. I don't need a faster cube and nothing about it will help me.
newtonbase
Premium Member
I tried slow turning at North London and got PBs. Should have done it yesterday!More experienced cubers advise turning slower in comp and that makes a lot of sense. What feels like 80% speed under comp pressure is probably actually normal full speed anyway
newtonbase
Premium Member
Really pleased to be ranked 33 in the UK for 3BLD so I've decided to focus on that for now and try to move up. However it does get very competitive and I'll need sub 2mins to get top 20.
Stage 1 is going to be a letter pair list. I have a few nights away with the family next week so by the end of that I plan to have something for each pair even if it isn't great.
I'll also practice with @mark49152's tracing technique. Having had a try with it I've realised that I pause an awful lot. I suppose I hadn't noticed before as I would usually stop anyway to come up with a word or image.
The Mr Men provide a rich source of images.
Stage 1 is going to be a letter pair list. I have a few nights away with the family next week so by the end of that I plan to have something for each pair even if it isn't great.
I'll also practice with @mark49152's tracing technique. Having had a try with it I've realised that I pause an awful lot. I suppose I hadn't noticed before as I would usually stop anyway to come up with a word or image.
The Mr Men provide a rich source of images.
bubbagrub
Veteran
Sounds good! Good luck with it.
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JanW
Veteran
I've never been to a cubing comp, but as a concert pianist I'm very familiar with performing complex finger work under pressure, and with how the hands feel like they behave very differently in such situations. This is something pretty much all professional musicians struggle with at some level. The most common advice is to do mental practice of the actual performance situation. For a musician, this means you envision the situation in your head, picture yourself walking out on the stage, taking a bow, seeing the audience, sitting down at the instrument and then play whatever whatever you are about to play. This way it is possible to recreate the same feeling of the performance situation to some degree. It doesn't always work, but sometimes I've managed to create the same shaky feeling in my hands in the comfort of my own home. If you can practice with that feeling, you can get used to it and learn how to handle it.The problem is that my hands behave slightly differently on the day. I don't know how I would recreate those conditions in practice, and it's certainly hard to make my hands behave during comp like they do during practice.
More experienced cubers advise turning slower in comp and that makes a lot of sense. What feels like 80% speed under comp pressure is probably actually normal full speed anyway
In cubing terms, you can imagine yourself at the venue in a room full of cubers, waiting for your name to be called and everything else leading up to the solve. Then you sit down at the table, cube covered, some judge sitting next to you and so on. Cover up the cube like it would be at the comp, use a stack mat, then go for the solve thinking that this is the one that counts.
I can imagine that turning too fast in comp is a common problem. Very often when I've listened to recordings of my own performances, I've been shocked about how fast I've played. One explanation I've heard for this is that it has to do with your heart rate. You have some kind of internal clock which tells you how fast you are doing stuff. When your heart is beating faster in a stressful situation, the internal clock is thrown off, as everything would feel slower in relation to the heart rate, unless you do it faster than normal. So basically you should do things slower than what feels normal if you want to do it at your regular speed.
bubbagrub
Veteran
Just did my first timed 7x7 solve... 14:24... So I've got a way to go before I'll make the hard-cut (10:00)...
mark49152
Premium Member
Yes it's a good point. Comps are relaxed places - what creates pressure is knowing you have a small number of chances to do well otherwise it's disappointment and a long wait until the next chance. I wonder if doing the weekly comp would help with that - at the moment I don't, but I suppose it could be similar pressure, albeit to a lesser degree.
Shaky Hands
Premium Member
I remember really feeling the pressure in the graduation week for the Race to Sub-30. Knowing that I needed to get a success 3 weeks in a row and one failure meant starting the run from scratch again felt hard. The number of events in the Weekly Comp doesn't really create the same level of pressure for me but is worthwhile regardless considering I'd be practicing anyway, just with other scrambles if not for those.
I listened to a podcast where Daniel Sheppard was interviewed and I recall him saying he never feels pressure at comps. Would like to get to that stage one day.
PS: @mark49152 @newtonbase @Selkie @Logiqx @bubbagrub ... Guildford comp is official for 1-2 October weekend. See UKCA page (no dedicated forum post just yet.)
