Older cubers discussions

[JanW]

Another noob blind question. I know that there is a lot of personal preference for what type of memorisation is used, but generally speaking what do you guys use ? So far I have tried letter pairs and trying to make up sentences and to be honest the memorisation is the hardest part of the blind solve for me. I like the idea of auditory memorisation but have never tried it

I'd also regard myself quite a noob when it comes to blind. I've mainly done it in periods, worked on it for a few weeks, then forgot about it for several months before trying again. I've found memo to be the hardest part whenever I pick up blind again after a break. However, it gets better quite quickly. In the beginning it's really slow if you are coming up with words on the fly. Once you have standard words to use for your sentences, it's a lot faster.

Audio works fine for me, when I get fast enough. When memo is slow, it's really hard to remember an audio sequence. But when you can look through the edges and memo the audio sequence quickly and immediately solve the edges, without any need to go back and recap your corner memo in between, then audio works very well.

As for method, when I first learned BLD I went straight for comms. Just learned the basic principle and started working out each case on the fly. It was slow at first, but quickly got easier. Now, if I try BLD again after a 6 month break, I have no problem solving everything with comms immediately. Since I learned to do them intuitively, there are no algs for me to forget. I know this is very unconventional and learning comms first is not generally recommended by anyone here. But as far as I know, nobody else here has any first hand experience of learning BLD this way.

 

[mark49152]

@JohnnyReggae : I use images and audio.

The key to making visual memo easier, faster and more reliable is to develop a set of images that instantly come to mind for each pair, especially the weird ones. And the images need to be vivid and distinct. I used to waste so much time struggling to find images, and made so many mistakes when the images were too weak. For example, if I got the pair LS the first words that would come to mind might be "less" or "lose" or "loose" so I'd pick the least bad one then struggle to include it meaningfully in my image scene. Then I'd forget it during execution. These days, LS is instantly "louse". A nice vivid image, easy to include in any scene, and none of my other pairs have images that look like a louse.

There are lots of helpful image lists out there, and Anki is a good tool for learning them.

 

[JohnnyReggae]

@JohnnyReggae :

There are lots of helpful image lists out there, and Anki is a good tool for learning them.

Thanks for the tip, I'm busy downloading it now after watching a short intro on how it works etc...

 

[newtonbase]

I use images for corners and audio for edges too. If I were faster in execution I'd use audio only. DeeDubb did a nice thread on audio where he switches dodgy letters for more common sounds eg if the 2nd letter is H then switch it for NG so if the pair is PH the word could be Pang or Ping. It doesn't take long to get used to and with the right rhythm you can easily remember 6 to 8 sounds.

 

[One Wheel]

Using Old Pochman I'm confused about "parity". I know that if I have an odd number of swaps that there will be parity due to the swap of pieces. I'm confused on how to deal with the "parity". This is what I assume with doing corners first followed by edges ... Do all of the corner swaps leaving the last, do all the edge swaps, followed by the last corner swap, followed by a U' and a lefty R-Perm (Ra) ([L U2' L' U2'] [L F'] [L' U' L U] [L F] L2' U) ? What happens if I wanted to do edges first ? Are my assumptions anywhere near correct ?

Presuming you're doing everything in a standard orientation, that R-perm needs a U' setup, and you finish with a U2. I think. At least that's what I do, but my success rate is so low that I could probably just apply half a dozen random moves when I have parity workout any meaningful change.

 

[h2f]

So far I have tried letter pairs and trying to make up sentences and to be honest the memorisation is the hardest part of the blind solve for me.

I use letter pairs and audio pairs. I know it's common answer but practice makes it much much easier. In the beginng it's very hard and as you can see it's a hardest part of the solve (and the longest). If you practice enough it becomes much easier. For me it took around a year to come from 10 minutes solve to the first 1:30.

 

[mitja]

Could you explain in a little more detail about putting magnets into the center pieces ? Or did you just add additional weight into the center's to equal the weight of 3 magnets ? If so, what did you use ? I'm intrigued but it and the weight distribution.

I added them for the weight. Thats the easiest. They get attached to the spring and screw. No need for glue and you can remove them if you don't like it.

 

[JohnnyReggae]

I added them for the weight. Thats the easiest. They get attached to the spring and screw. No need for glue and you can remove them if you don't like it.

Ahhh ok... makes sense now Not a bad idea to balance out the weight.

 

[mafergut]

Wow guys! You almost make me wanna get back to 3BLD again. But I know I'll never get even close to my fellow countrywoman Berta. Have you read about her breaking the ER and getting 3rd in the world? She's crazy good at BLD!

As I promised, after finishing an Ao1000 at OH and beating all my old PBs I started to learn the OLLs I was missing. I have been able to adapt for OH execution all the algs I was using for 2H and I have gone from about just half the OLLs (rest I'd go for 2-look) to around 50-something already. Of course some of them still need to stick better and will take some seconds to recall but, other than that I'm quite happy with my progress.

To be honest, I have not learned a lot of new things lately and I had almost forgotten how much I enjoy learning... maybe even more than getting faster. Of course, I hope I'll get faster (on average) at OH once all the OLLs sink in properly. I don't count big cubes as learning new things as, apart from the parity algs and little else, their are just same as 3x3 but bigger

 

[newtonbase]

But I know I'll never get even close to my fellow countrywoman Berta. Have you read about her breaking the ER and getting 3rd in the world? She's crazy good at BLD!

She's my favourite blind solver. She keeps getting faster and always does well in competition. She's got a great chance of being World Champion.

 

[mark49152]

Berta is awesome, but @mafergut, you don't have to aim for her level to enjoy 3BLD! Just give it a go and have fun!

 

[bubbagrub]

Hi Oldies, I've not posted on here for a while. I thought I'd give a quick update on my feet progress. I'm not quite sure why, but I've been focusing almost exclusively on practising feet in the past couple of months, and have made good progress. I'm reasonably hopeful that I'll qualify for Worlds...

My progress looks like this:

My PBs are:

single 55.91
mo3 1:06.73
ao5 1:08.23
ao12 1:14.43
ao50 1:21.70
ao100 1:23.52

It turns out floor surface makes a really big difference. Those times are on carpet, but I've also been practising on a stackmat on a wooden floor, in which case I'm definitely slower, but getting better.

Also, I think it's having a bit of a knock-on effect on my normal 3x3 solving. I've been at a 23ish plateau for ages now, and lookahead has definitely been my nemesis. Solving with feet forces you to go slower, so I'm definitely finding myself doing much more lookahead.

Anyway, in conclusion: feet is fun. Give it a go.

 

[Logiqx]

Oldies. Watch this...

I'm very late commenting but you got amazing official times @Jason Green!

What do you reckon your global average is nowadays?

 

[CLL Smooth]

you got amazing official times @Jason Green!

You must have sold your soul to the devil for that 3x3 avg.

 

[Jason Green]

Oldies. Watch this...

I'm very late commenting but you got amazing official times @Jason Green!

What do you reckon your global average is nowadays?

Thanks I was going to share that! I still have not edited my solves. I think globally I'm right around sub 18 barely. The thing is I hardly ever do "clean" averages, they just annoy me especially if it's late at night etc. So if I do 50 solves I might actually do 55-60 and throw out the other 5-10 where I did the wrong alg etc. I don't count it as an ao50 though. My thought is that I'm just not going to do that in comp so I don't care about those crap solves. Generally that has held true. Except the morning round at this comp where I got a 20.7 average.

You must have sold your soul to the devil for that 3x3 avg.

I wouldn't do that... But he does have low interest lease options now.

 

[h2f]

@Jason Green nice to see you again meeting Anthony.

 

[Logiqx]

Oooh. Nice session.

Shame i have to end it now!

# of solving: 30
# of penalty: 0
# of DNF: 0
Std Dev: 1.031
Best of all: 12.815
Worst of all: 19.118
Average of all: 15.860
Best Avg of 5: 14.568
Best Avg of 12: 15.392
Best Avg of 25: 15.685

 

[JohnnyReggae]

A new 3x3 ao5 PB this afternoon. Quite surprised by it given that I've been averaging around 17 the whole day with all my solves. 140 timed solves with 17 sub-15's. 5 of them in my best ao12 of the day ... ao12 was within 2 10th's of a second of my current PB ... so a good little run for me

Generated By csTimer on 2017-5-19
avg of 5: 13.48

Time List:
1. 13.70 F2 L D2 B2 L U2 F2 L B2 L2 F2 B' U R' B' U F R U' R2
2. (13.01) R L2 D2 B2 D2 F R2 D2 L2 R2 U' F2 U F U L' F R B
3. (17.12) D' L2 F2 R2 B2 D2 L2 U R2 U' L2 F' L2 R B' F' L2 D F L2
4. 13.49 F U R D' B2 D' F D L U B2 R2 U' R2 B2 R2 F2 U2 F'
5. 13.24 D L2 F2 L2 U2 L2 F2 R2 B R2 U2 R' B2 R' U' F' D2 F2 L F2

 

[Lid]

Finally ... 59.715 a5 4x4 ...
53.869, (53.829), 1:02.924, (1:10.106), 1:02.353

Also had a 58.5 and a 51.4, but the a12 was a few 1/10's over PB.

 

[muchacho]

45000 timed solves reached, I have not improved much in last 5000, but at least some. This time finally learned the Antisune CMLL set (although I'm still like 2-3 seconds slower with it, and that's not counting mess ups), only Sune left for full CMLL.