Older cubers discussions

[Jason Green]

Wonderful with everyone on PBs and comp success!

As far as practice I can sometimes get very close to the comp nerves at home by visualizing it. I too felt a lot of nerves on the graduation rounds from the race threads. I blew it the first time in race to 25, but haven't blown one since then.

 

[newtonbase]

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.)

I'm in discussions with Mrs Base about it. I'm saving up points for the UKs (if they ever get a venue) so I'll be happy with a day.

The subject of competition nerves is interesting. Of course the simplest way to relax is to not care but then why bother practicing, or even competing. I've been looking at freediving recently. These guys must be as good as anyone at relaxing before competing. They have to drop their heart rates before doing something incredibly hard and dangerous. Maybe @efattah could give us some tips? I know about the breathing side of it but would love to know more about the psychology of it.

 

[One Wheel]

I think you are right! Even at practiced scrambles after doing the same scramble 10 times I can not get the insane TPS that new young cubers do get. But if you do 40 moves instead of 100

TPS reminded me of an interesting encounter yesterday. There is a boy at my church who is about 14 or 15. He has seen me playing with cubes now and then, and I suspect that was what inspired him to get his own. He got a Rubik's brand first, but yesterday he had a really good speedcube. (Not sure what kind.) I asked him how fast he can solve it, and he said that he averages about a minute with a best time of 37 seconds. He solved mine once, and he was using LBL with EO-EP-CP-CO LL and very little look ahead, but his TPS is incredible.

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.

I'm hardly a professional, but as an amateur violinist I go the opposite direction: I visualize myself practicing at home when I'm performing.

 

[MarcelP]

The only way I can explain it is as a lapse in concentration. I don't know what I can do about that.

I hear cocaïne helps a lot in the concentration department.. LOL

 

[newtonbase]

I hear cocaïne helps a lot in the concentration department.. LOL

I did try Coco Cola but they don't put it in that any more.

 

[bubbagrub]

Someone (Ollie, I think) once told me that bananas are good for reducing nerves... No idea if it's true...

I did fine this past weekend that my 6x6 solve was one of the most enjoyable ones, because it felt so unpressured. It was the only solve I did where I had no nerves at all, and I'm sure that's because I knew I'd make the hard cut, knew I had no chance of making the soft cut, and put no pressure on myself. Maybe there's a way to manufacture that, somehow, for solves you do care about...

 

[Logiqx]

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.

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.

The connection I saw was how a competition environment changes your mental state and physiology. Where Travis was saying you might "pull harder" on the bike we have a tendency to turn faster which is generally a bad thing. It's a loose connection but the hardware also has analogies. A fast cube is akin to the well oiled bike he talked about and you either have to be careful with it in the comp or use something which requires more effort to operate.

@Shaky Hands: Thanks for the heads up re: Guilford

I've just Google bananas and it seems there may be something to it!

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

 

[newtonbase]

Given his accomplishments and his degree subject you'd have to believe it. But even if bananas don't have a physical effect as long as you convince yourself they do then the placebo effect should work.

Another technique I've read about is to pinch yourself hard when you are in the zone and then, when you need to get back to that state, you pinch yourself in the same place. But that might be rubbish.

 

[efattah]

The subject of competition nerves is interesting. Of course the simplest way to relax is to not care but then why bother practicing, or even competing. I've been looking at freediving recently. These guys must be as good as anyone at relaxing before competing. They have to drop their heart rates before doing something incredibly hard and dangerous. Maybe @efattah could give us some tips? I know about the breathing side of it but would love to know more about the psychology of it.

Well when going for a record freedive, you are doing your final breathing while the judges are giving you a countdown from 2 minutes down to 0, at which point you only have 30 seconds to start the dive. As most divers are utterly terrified of the upcoming dive, and death is a significant possibility, it feels like the judges are counting down the seconds left in your life, and in some rare cases that turned out to be true. It is in this most extreme case that the solution to nerves becomes apparent. The answer was first scientifically discovered by the HeartMath institute but was found many times independently by other people. The answer is love. In that critical moment, you need to conjure love, which can be hard, but you must think of people you love and the support they have given you; think of hard times in your life when someone was there for you when you needed them the most. If you really concentrate on those memories you can brings yourself to tears of gratitude as you think of what could have happened to you had those people not been there for you when you needed them the most. Once you feel your eyes watering from love & gratitude, you will have long forgotten why you were nervous in the first place. You will be overwhelmed with a feeling of transcendent peace, and the 'zone' of perfect performance will overcome you, and many times you might find yourself outperforming even the best results of your personal practices. To understand it even better, you will realize that the defining moments in your life were those very same moments of great need when others were there for you, and that will put into perspective how non-important the current moment is; and all nervousness vanishes.

Eric Fattah
BC, Canada

 

[mafergut]

Well when going for a record freedive, you are doing your final breathing while the judges are giving you a countdown from 2 minutes down to 0, at which point you only have 30 seconds to start the dive. As most divers are utterly terrified of the upcoming dive, and death is a significant possibility, it feels like the judges are counting down the seconds left in your life, and in some rare cases that turned out to be true. It is in this most extreme case that the solution to nerves becomes apparent. The answer was first scientifically discovered by the HeartMath institute but was found many times independently by other people. The answer is love. In that critical moment, you need to conjure love, which can be hard, but you must think of people you love and the support they have given you; think of hard times in your life when someone was there for you when you needed them the most. If you really concentrate on those memories you can brings yourself to tears of gratitude as you think of what could have happened to you had those people not been there for you when you needed them the most. Once you feel your eyes watering from love & gratitude, you will have long forgotten why you were nervous in the first place. You will be overwhelmed with a feeling of transcendent peace, and the 'zone' of perfect performance will overcome you, and many times you might find yourself outperforming even the best results of your personal practices. To understand it even better, you will realize that the defining moments in your life were those very same moments of great need when others were there for you, and that will put into perspective how non-important the current moment is; and all nervousness vanishes.

Eric Fattah
BC, Canada

So beautiful way of overcoming nerves... Thanks for sharing. But, to be honest, I can understand how that can be very useful and worthy for such a test as extreme freedive, where your life is at stake, I don't think a cubing comp is worthy of such an emotional rollercoaster, which, ironically, makes me also think how unimportant that moment is. Maybe if I just think of your story it would help a lot in putting nerves aside.

 

[newtonbase]

Well when going for a record freedive, you are doing your final breathing while the judges are giving you a countdown from 2 minutes down to 0, at which point you only have 30 seconds to start the dive. As most divers are utterly terrified of the upcoming dive, and death is a significant possibility, it feels like the judges are counting down the seconds left in your life, and in some rare cases that turned out to be true. It is in this most extreme case that the solution to nerves becomes apparent. The answer was first scientifically discovered by the HeartMath institute but was found many times independently by other people. The answer is love. In that critical moment, you need to conjure love, which can be hard, but you must think of people you love and the support they have given you; think of hard times in your life when someone was there for you when you needed them the most. If you really concentrate on those memories you can brings yourself to tears of gratitude as you think of what could have happened to you had those people not been there for you when you needed them the most. Once you feel your eyes watering from love & gratitude, you will have long forgotten why you were nervous in the first place. You will be overwhelmed with a feeling of transcendent peace, and the 'zone' of perfect performance will overcome you, and many times you might find yourself outperforming even the best results of your personal practices. To understand it even better, you will realize that the defining moments in your life were those very same moments of great need when others were there for you, and that will put into perspective how non-important the current moment is; and all nervousness vanishes.

Eric Fattah
BC, Canada

Wow. That's not the answer I was expecting. Thanks @efattah

 

[mark49152]

Wow yes that's a bit over-dramatic for cubing, but I do think it helps to remind ourselves that it's only a hobby and nothing important depends on it. I sometimes wonder bemusedly why I get so nervous at comps given how trivial it really is.

 

[SenorJuan]

As someone who suffers badly from nerves, it does seem odd that the trivial act of solving a plastic puzzle should cause so much stress. I think it's not as trivial as it must appear - you spend hours and hours practicing, learning, studying, warming up, getting in-the-zone for just a few seconds of opportunity. It IS actually important to you, at the time.
My 'To Do' list before I compete again includes reading up on controlling nerves.

 

[mafergut]

As someone who suffers badly from nerves, it does seem odd that the trivial act of solving a plastic puzzle should cause so much stress. I think it's not as trivial as it must appear - you spend hours and hours practicing, learning, studying, warming up, getting in-the-zone for just a few seconds of opportunity. It IS actually important to you, at the time.
My 'To Do' list before I compete again includes reading up on controlling nerves.

Fully agree with this. Sadly I also have lots of problems with controlling nervousness myself.

By the way, for the statistics trivia lover in me, in the middle of a horrible warm-up session, this Ao5 came out of nowhere:

3x3 Ao5: (20.61), (15.75), 16.46, 16.91, 16.69 = 16.69

It is not my best, just in the top ten, but it happens to have the best worst counting solve of any Ao5 I have on record. I had never recorder an Ao5 with all counting solves sub-17 and the pity is that I lost at least 3 tenths before stopping the timer on that 16.91 so it could have been easy a mid-16.

What does this have to do with nerves, you say? I saw the streak of sub-17 solves, tried to roll the Ao5, locked up all over the place, got a 25.xx. Nothing more to say

 

[Selkie]

Been away for a long weekend at a Volkswagen festival, another of my hobbies. This was the reason I was unable to make Maccelsfield, so...

Firstly huge congratulations to to those representing the oldies at Maccelsfield. I see lots and lots of PBs which is awesome stuff and chuffed to see the 5x5 BLD success @mark49152 .

I see Guildford early October is now official and I can confirm I will definitely be there but at this stage it looks like it might be only the Sunday as we have a family birthday to attend on the Saturday near Oxford.

Although we were away camping managed to get lots of untimed 7x7 practice in so going to do an Ao5 shortly to see what times are like. Also have to catch up on the thread and push forward with the 4x4

 

[mark49152]

Thanks @Selkie, hope to see you in Guildford!

 

[Jason Green]

@Selkie, maybe you should film some practice.

 

[Selkie]

Indeed @Jason Green , I haven't uploaded anything to my YT channel in a few months. Will try and get round to some 4x4 or 7x7 filming tomorrow

 

[efattah]

So beautiful way of overcoming nerves... Thanks for sharing. But, to be honest, I can understand how that can be very useful and worthy for such a test as extreme freedive, where your life is at stake, I don't think a cubing comp is worthy of such an emotional rollercoaster, which, ironically, makes me also think how unimportant that moment is. Maybe if I just think of your story it would help a lot in putting nerves aside.

Well, there are more 'mundane' ways to overcome nerves, and again, the world-wide community of competitive freedivers have developed so many methods I can't even list them all here. One example relies mostly on balancing your electrolytes:
- 60-90min before the performance, eat 1 fresh banana (=potassium) with a tall glass of *whole* (full fat) milk (=calcium + soothing fat), and take 1000mg of supplemental magnesium
- After eating that, use the Stress Doctor app for 20 minutes if possible (this is a biofeedback of your pulse that allows you to control your breathing to stimulate your parasympathetic nervous system and it works like a miracle; there used to be a device called the stress eraser, even better, but it is discontinued)
- Thirty minutes before the performance, drink an intense (strong) cup of holy basil tea (herbal relaxant)
- Just before solving, follow the brain oxygenation trick I posted in another thread (close your eyes, inhale to the max hold for 5 seconds, exhale slowly, inhale to the max, hold 5 seconds, for a total of 5 breaths with eyes closed). Then open eyes and solve.


Eric Fattah
BC, Canada

 

[mark49152]

Maybe I will try all that before my next MBLD.