Older cubers discussions

Just saw your video, Grzegorz @h2f. Nice reaction and I laughed that you nearly fell off your chair :). Your memo was fast but your execution looked so slow! How was the scramble?

It was close to fall. :)

NIce scramble for every blinder in a round. 8 algs, 2 solved edges.

I know my execution is slow but as I wrote - I didnt practice for a long time and I didnt feel confident.
 
Seriously?!? That’s amazing!
I was thinking of doing some OH solves while doing some downhill mountain unicycling, which should be perfectly achievable. Only problem I have is that I do OH with my left hand, but I also hold onto the Uni to stabalise it with my left hand so I need to work around that. Although on some easy trails there is no need to hold onto the Uni.
 
Did some 3BLD practice today. Really felt rushed... it’s been awhile and I didn’t give myself much of a break in terms of time. I still managed to be in the low-to-mid 3 minute range. But, as would be expected bring forth the DNFs!! 3 in a row. Then switched to the weekly comp and did those three... 2/3 in that stretch so 2/6 on the day. 33% isn’t terrible. And I got a 2:48 in the weekly. I’m pretty pleased with anything sub 3 for the time being. Then, a 4:02. I got mentally stuck on the “S” (or BD) sticker. It was second in the memo and I couldn’t recall the “I” or FU sticker special case for M2. So... I decided to try something. I did the 2-in-1 trick for I/S when paired with a non-M-slice edge. I did the letter swap in my head. So, in stead of S-H, I actually did I-H. And guess what... it WORKED! I was pretty sure it would, but have never tried it before. So, that’s a winner for me on the day.

@JohnnyReggae I’d be seriously blown away if I saw someone riding a unicycle while solving a cube OH! That’s a video just WAITING to be made!
 
Did some 3BLD practice today. Really felt rushed... it’s been awhile and I didn’t give myself much of a break in terms of time. I still managed to be in the low-to-mid 3 minute range. But, as would be expected bring forth the DNFs!! 3 in a row. Then switched to the weekly comp and did those three... 2/3 in that stretch so 2/6 on the day. 33% isn’t terrible. And I got a 2:48 in the weekly. I’m pretty pleased with anything sub 3 for the time being. Then, a 4:02. I got mentally stuck on the “S” (or BD) sticker. It was second in the memo and I couldn’t recall the “I” or FU sticker special case for M2. So... I decided to try something. I did the 2-in-1 trick for I/S when paired with a non-M-slice edge. I did the letter swap in my head. So, in stead of S-H, I actually did I-H. And guess what... it WORKED! I was pretty sure it would, but have never tried it before. So, that’s a winner for me on the day.

@JohnnyReggae I’d be seriously blown away if I saw someone riding a unicycle while solving a cube OH! That’s a video just WAITING to be made!

There is a utube video of a guy juggling and solving three 3x3s while riding a unicycle. A grad student out in Cal. Maybe 2-3 years ago.
 
33% isn’t terrible.

No! It's ok when you practice. They say 30% acc in 3bld during practice session means it was a good session.

I think using memo techniques in 3bld makes your memory better in a long run. My accuracy in blind events was low for a long time (20-30%), for some reason. I think now is up to around 50%.
 
No! It's ok when you practice. They say 30% acc in 3bld during practice session means it was a good session.

I think using memo techniques in 3bld makes your memory better in a long run. My accuracy in blind events was low for a long time (20-30%), for some reason. I think now is up to around 50%.
I’ll have to find ways to increase my memo speed. Right now, that’s my slowest part. It’s a stretch goal for now, but I’d like to get my memo comfortable under 1:00.
 
I’ll have to find ways to increase my memo speed. Right now, that’s my slowest part. It’s a stretch goal for now, but I’d like to get my memo comfortable under 1:00.

Almost all blders will say that you have to practice + stop reviewing for a faster memo. There is no short cut. More details, though,
1) If you do corner-edge sequence, use images or rooms for corners (for a longer term memo) but switch to Audio for edges.
2) For audio edges, you have to overcome the fear of forgetting stuff. At the end of trace (edges), just don blindfold and start. If it helps, just practice edge only with audio. You'll find it not that difficult after some practices.
3) Regarding practice, two aspects: trace speed + drilling algs. Since you're M2/OP (I guess), drilling means more like spamming tps. (repeating M2 and OP with setups). For trace, you need many many sessions to improve the tracing speed. You may want to dedicate some time (30min or 1 hour) every day. 3min avg means less than 20 session for an hour - the numbers will increase as you keep practicing. Think about your 3x3x3 sessions, how many you have done so far. It takes times.
 
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Finally managed to beat my longest standing PB ... 3x3 single :) It's been 2 years and 2 days since I last broke my 3x3 PB. It did come with a lot of luck though but I will take it anyway. So my new PB is a *massive* 6 hundredth's of a second faster than my previous PB. New PB now stands at 9.51 :)

Scramble:
F2 D2 F' R2 F' U2 L2 U2 B F2 R' B' L' R2 F' D2 U' L2 D L'

Solution:
z2 // inspection
D2 B' F U' F R' D2 // cross 7
U2 R U R' U y' L' U L // 1st 15
R U' R' U R' U' R // 2nd 22
R U' R' U y' R' U' R // 3rd 29
U' L' U L U' y L U L' // 4th 37
U2 // auf LL-SKIP 38

// = 9.51 @ 4tps
 
I’ll have to find ways to increase my memo speed. Right now, that’s my slowest part.

Memo and execution are connected. If you feel comfortable with memo, your execution is faster. If your execution is faster, your memo is shorter because you need it for shorter period of time. Etc. Plus what Jae (@openseas) wrote. What are your splits?
 
Memo and execution are connected. If you feel comfortable with memo, your execution is faster. If your execution is faster, your memo is shorter because you need it for shorter period of time.
That's true, but they can still both benefit from being worked on separately.
 
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Had a great time at UKC this weekend. Great to catch up with the oldies as usual - @Shaky Hands, @Selkie, @newtonbase, @Logiqx, @bubbagrub, @speedpicker and @SenorJuan. My results were disappointing but that's unsurprising with my lack of practice, and I'll plan to be better prepared for next year :D.

Yes. Great to see everyone in one place again and I'll add @speedpicker to the over-40's rankings when I run the next refresh.

A quick review against the goals I posted last week...

TL;DR Saturday results were ok-ish. Sunday results were beyond terrible. I still enjoyed watching the action on Sunday afternoon!

3x3 - 15.x average (rolling Ao1000 is 15.27) - 17.28 avg on Sat / 19.46 avg on Sun

OH - 24.x average (rolling Ao1000 is 23.91) - 28.85 avg on Sat (counting 35.50 should have been a low-20) / 37.19 avg on Sun (global average + 55%), included counting 55.18!!!

Pyra - 6.x average (rolling Ao1000 is 5.91) - 6.89 avg on Sat (minor PB) / 9.24 avg on Sun (global average + 56%), DNF was a timer-start issue

Skewb - 9.x average (rolling Ao1000 is 8.48) - 9.80 avg on Sat (minor PB) but missed next round by 2 places. Fastest over-40 with a 4.75 single (nothing extraordinary at the beginning but skipped U/Z/H Perm).

2x2 - 5.x (just about sub-5 in the lead up to comp) - Two 13.x solves ruined the average and knocked me out of round 2

4x4 - TBC (not practised) - 1:11.20 avg (decent PB)... somewhat slower than when I used to practice but still five seconds faster than a 2 year old PB. Also included a 1:01.85 single with OLL parity. Last solve was also 1:03.35 but a counting 1:19 damaged the average.
 
@Logiqx & all: I've no real goals for UKC. I'm very out of practice and haven't improved much since UKC last year. I'd just like to do well in at least one BLD event, and enjoy the comp whatever happens at the solving table.
I enjoyed the comp so that goal was met :). Here's a quick run down of events.

MBLD: 17/20 was a respectable result and left me 3rd on day 1 (format was bo2). However, day 2 was a mess, only 11/20, and I got pushed down to 4th.

5BLD & 4BLD: Slower than last year but my memo was pretty solid. Sadly 5 of the 6 solves were destroyed by dreadful execution errors, failed fixes, and fumbles. I got a 6:26 success on the final 4BLD but it was 2 minutes off where I should be so not much to cheer me up.

3BLD: A decent 56 in the first round scraped me through to the final where I got 3 DNFs. However, my tactics for the final were to rush memo and go all out for a PB, and I was quite pleased that two of the DNFs were 52 & 54 with memo around 20. Both were execution errors, one of which was a comm done the wrong direction. So I took some encouragement from these being my fastest competition attempts, even if not quite solved :).

Sighted: Got my first 3x3 single PB for 2.5 years. Everything else was mediocre.

Now looking forward to Weston in 4 weeks!
 
Since Euros I've really only been practising FMC... I had hoped I'd aim for a PB average but I think just hoping for a sub-30 single will do. Other than that, I've done almost no practice solves in any other events, apart from the weekly competition on here, and a bit of extra clock practice. I'm hoping I'll get PBs in Clock -- maybe 15ish average. Other than that, catching up with you all will be nice. :) Also, my wife and daughter are entering their second comp, so I'm hoping they'll both get a PB or two...

Very nice to see so many of the oldies this past weekend. I ended up missing clock, due to not feeling well enough to stay for it, but otherwise all goals were met. Beth & Erin each got PBs, I got 2 sub-30s in FMC (and a very disappointing 37) and caught up with lots of great people.
 
Memo and execution are connected. If you feel comfortable with memo, your execution is faster. If your execution is faster, your memo is shorter because you need it for shorter period of time. Etc. Plus what Jae (@openseas) wrote. What are your splits?
Good advice from @openseas
I have taken his advice a couple different times to successful improvement. My splits are pretty even around 1:45 and 1:30-1:45. On average. But if I don’t have any pauses my execution is under a minute. It’s rare that my memo is that fast, however.
 
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