Older cubers discussions

Lid said:
I'm all stickerless now! http://imgur.com/tNMU5PL

7x7 AoFu GT
6x6 YuXin
5x5 YuXin
4x4 CycloneBoys
3x3 YueXiao
OH LingYun
2x2 WeiPo
Clock Rubik's ...
Mega X-man
Pyra QiYi
Skewb QiYi
Sq1 QiYi
Click to expand...
Awsome. I was thiking about buying new Thunderclap in stickerless version, but decided to buy black and white. Guess which one is for my son? ;) I'll buy stickerless next time. I'm big fun of stickerless MFG minx - today I did first sub4.
 
efattah said:
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
Click to expand...

If I tried this it would probably go something like this:
- About 75 minutes before event I would realize I did not have whole milk, so I would run to the gas station next door.
- When they were sold out of whole milk, I would run back, get in my car, and drive down the street to Walmart.
- I would get back to comp, somewhat stressed, but with still 45 minutes to go, so I'd think I'm ok.
- Then I would realize I downloaded the Stress Doctor on my wife's phone, and the Wifi would most certainly suck, and I'd be frantically trying to download the app. I would get it finally and listen for about 20 minutes.
- Finally it would be time for my tea. After digging around in my bag for some time I would realize I left it sitting on the counter in the kitchen.
- I'd definitely go for the deep breathing at that point. :)
 
newtonbase said:
I was incredibly nervous about my driving test and then locked the keys in the car just before it started. My instructor managed to get in just in time which was a huge relief. Nerves gone. Test passed.
Click to expand...
I was nervous on my driving test. I got to the very first junction and the examiner said nothing. I wondered, why hasn't he said anything? I paused a few seconds at the junction then asked, "which way do you want me to go?" And he replied: "it's a one-way street."
 
Talking about driving test, sure I can remember I was nervous. So nervous I was going a bit too slow but in the end I managed to pass on 1st try, which was a relief. But the two occassions I remember I was really nervous were when I had to defend my "end of bachelor's degree" project (I did not get a PhD but it's the same experience) and the first time I had to talk in front of an audience (it was a technical white paper presentation on a conference). And nothing worked before those two experiences... until after 2-3 minutes into the thik of it, that's when I realize that it's not such a big deal and I start to relax and get my confidence back. No need to imagine the audience in underwear or anything like that :)

By the way, yesterday I got two very nice 3x3 singles:

12.25 F' U' R' L U L' U2 L' B D R2 B L2 B R2 U2 F B R2

If I had not freaked when I saw the PLL skip and taken too much time to AUF and stop the timer it could have been a high 11. My best timed solve in 6 months and my second best overall.

13.65 F' R F2 B U' L B R D R' U2 D2 F R2 D2 F B2 L2 F U2

And a dozen solves later this full step. It's not terribly good, maybe in my top 30-40 solves but I checked the timer before PLL and it was changing from 10 to 11 so, had I gotten the PLL skip on this it would have been PB for sure.
 
I've read about your tests but I havent got any story to tell about it.

Going back to cubing - new Thunderclap has no nice first impressions. I feel it will change after breaking in the cube.
 
newtonbase said:
I was incredibly nervous about my driving test and then locked the keys in the car just before it started. My instructor managed to get in just in time which was a huge relief. Nerves gone. Test passed.
Click to expand...

mark49152 said:
I was nervous on my driving test. I got to the very first junction and the examiner said nothing. I wondered, why hasn't he said anything? I paused a few seconds at the junction then asked, "which way do you want me to go?" And he replied: "it's a one-way street."
Click to expand...

I was also very nervous on my driving test nearly ... erm ... thirty year ago! Wow, I am old :D

But I forgot my glasses and memorised five number plates in the right range hoping the tester would pick one of those, they luckily did but I thought I recalled it incorrectly so thought I had failed anyway. Relaxed completely just wanting to get it over with. Passed :)
 
Hahah, driving tests... that was a while ago. I actually failed my first one, but in hindsight this was a good thing. Upon failure, I was assigned a certain amount of extra lessons before retaking the test. As I took those lessons with another driving instructor, I learned that my first instructor had been really really bad. The reason I was so nervous going into the first test and got so many red marks was that my instructor hadn't taught me how to do things properly. He was mainly sitting next to me waiting for retirement, not commenting much at all on anything I did. The new instructor was a lot more demanding, corrected almost everything I did from the first lesson, and after a few lessons with him I was a lot more confident. Passed second test without any remarks. :)
 
Lid said:
I'm all stickerless now! http://imgur.com/tNMU5PL
Click to expand...

What a nice set of puzzles. I regret having bought the stickered Aofu GT instead of the stickerless. I'm still missing quite a few to get a full collection like that (Pyra, SQ-1, Mega, 3x3 and the mentioned 7x7). Well, and clock, which I just don't have :)

By the way, another nice single (OLL skip):
13.07 R U2 R' F2 L2 F2 D2 L B2 L' F' U' F2 U R' U F' D' U' B'

And a bunch of 21 to 24 and even 25-26 sec solves as well. I'm so inconsistent lately...
 
Hey I just improved my PB by a whole second, down to 28.52 s ! I was quite lucky with the F2L though, as a pair was formed right when I finished the cross and the three others happened to all be among the cases that I can do without cube rotations. But no OLL/PLL skips whatsoever !
 
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What is happening this week?

I seem to be getting lots of mediocre averages, a bunch of terrible solves (and not all of them on non-white/yellow cross, sadly) and also some very nice singles.

New PB single by 0.30 sec with PLL skip (and an easy to preserve pair during cross, but not technically an x-cross)

11.50 B' F2 L' F2 L2 D2 U2 R' D2 B2 D2 R2 D' R2 D' F' D2 B' R2 U
 
All these singles were done on a Moyu Hualong but I have not completely discarded the Yuexiao just yet. I can't seem to find the perfect cube and it might be that the Hualong is partly the cause of the inconsistent times I'm getting lately.
 
So today I set out to get a sub 1 minute 4x4 Ao5 on film but failed miserably. Best Ao5 was not even sub 1:01. I will try again tomorrow since I have not uploaded to my YouTube channel in 3 months! Got some nice singles and seem to be gettign regular sub 55 solves now.

I have however just got a PB Mo3 for 6x6 and edging closer to sub 4 :)

Mean of 3: 4:08.98
1. 4:02.11
2. 4:17.06
3. 4:07.78
 
If somebody was trying the 11.50 scramble and thinking how on earth I got a PLL skip I tried to reconstruct and it took me a while until I realized I had made a stupid mistake during cross. Without that mistake and others it could have been a sub-10 but, again, without that mistake it would have ended on a U-perm so probably the final time would have been similar or worse.

Now that I have the reconstruction I'm ashamed that this execution disaster is actually my PB single:

11.50 B' F2 L' F2 L2 D2 U2 R' D2 B2 D2 R2 D' R2 D' F' D2 B' R2 U
z2 // Inspection
D R' B' R2 y' R U' R' // Cross + preserve pair, but made a mistake at the end (7/40)
U2 L' U L // F2L#1 I had planned up to here in inspection so I took the green-white edge for a trip :p (11/40)
U2 R2 R' U R U' R U R' // Fix cross, realize I had an easy pair, waste a move, F2L#2 (20/40)
R' U' R // F2L#3 (didn't see it fast enough to combine both pairs as R U R2 U' R) (23/40)
y' L' U' L U L' U' L // F2L#4 (30/40)
U r U R' U' r' F R F' // OLL (39/40)
U // AUF + PLL skip (40/40)

TPS = 40 / 11.50 = 3.48 TPS // The crappy TPS does not lie. This was all luck and barely any skill involved
 
Last edited:
mafergut said:
If somebody has tried the 11.50 scramble and thinking how on earth did I get a PLL skip I tried to reconstruct and took a while until I realized I had made a stupid mistake during cross. Without that mistake and others it could have been a sub-10 but, again, without that mistake it would have ended on a U-perm so probable the final time would have been similar or worse.

Now that I have the reconstruction I'm ashamed that this execution disaster is actually my PB single:

11.50 B' F2 L' F2 L2 D2 U2 R' D2 B2 D2 R2 D' R2 D' F' D2 B' R2 U
z2 // Inspection
D R' B' R2 y' R U' R' // Cross + preserve pair, but made a mistake at the end (7/40)
U2 L' U L // F2L#1 I had planned up to here in inspection so I took the green-white edge for a trip :p (11/40)
U2 R2 R' U R U' R U R' // Fix cross, realize I had an easy pair, waste a move, F2L#2 (20/40)
R' U' R // F2L#3 (didn't see it fast enough to combine both pairs as R U R2 U' R) (23/40)
y' L' U' L U L' U' L // F2L#4 (30/40)
U r U R' U' r' F R F' // OLL (39/40)
U // AUF + PLL skip (40/40)

TPS = 40 / 11.50 = 3.48 TPS // The crappy TPS does not lie. This was all luck and barely any skill involved
Click to expand...

pb singles are supposed to be luck after all. :P I can totally feel you though, as most of my sub12 solves had similar crappy executions.
Also, I learnt something from your 2nd F2L pair, I used to solve that case much more inefficiently. ._.
 
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