Picking up BLD again: Continue with old method or learn a new one?

[Snigel]

I learnt BLD from A 3-Cycle Guide to 3x3x3 Blindfold Cubing almost fifteen years ago. I learnt it well enough to consistently memorise and solve the cube in under ten minutes, but I never really tried to go for speed. I also used it to get 2/3 for multi, but never tried that too seriously either. I didn't cube much for most of this time, however, and only picked it up again earlier this year. I decided to learn CFOP instead of Petrus and now average around 20.

Now to my question: I assume that a lot has happened in blindfolded cubing since 2008. How bad is the method I learnt compared to newer methods? Considering that I would need to refresh my memory for some algs anyway, should I just ditch the old method and learn a more modern one? If so, which?

I'm interested in learning and improving, but I realise that I will never be actually good at cubing. I mention this because if the newer methods are just slightly better, I should just stick with the old one, but if the difference is very big, it might make sense to just learn a new one from scratch!

 

[Jorian Meeuse]

I learnt BLD from A 3-Cycle Guide to 3x3x3 Blindfold Cubing almost fifteen years ago. I learnt it well enough to consistently memorise and solve the cube in under ten minutes, but I never really tried to go for speed. I also used it to get 2/3 for multi, but never tried that too seriously either. I didn't cube much for most of this time, however, and only picked it up again earlier this year. I decided to learn CFOP instead of Petrus and now average around 20.

Now to my question: I assume that a lot has happened in blindfolded cubing since 2008. How bad is the method I learnt compared to newer methods? Considering that I would need to refresh my memory for some algs anyway, should I just ditch the old method and learn a more modern one? If so, which?

I'm interested in learning and improving, but I realise that I will never be actually good at cubing. I mention this because if the newer methods are just slightly better, I should just stick with the old one, but if the difference is very big, it might make sense to just learn a new one from scratch!

Methods have certainly developed a lot since then. If i understand this correctly, you solve orientation and permutation seperately. The BH method combined these steps into one, meaning you need to know 3cycles between any 3 pieces of the same type, in any orientation. This is definitely a lot faster than the former method. However, the BH method uses move optimal commutators. It is more common to use 3-style, which is the same concept as BH, but the algs are speed optimal, not move optimal.
There are many additional techniques needed to become world class, such as floating, LTCT, pseudo swaps etc, but I wouldn't worry about that if I were you, as becoming world class isn't your goal.

 

[Snigel]

Methods have certainly developed a lot since then. If i understand this correctly, you solve orientation and permutation seperately. The BH method combined these steps into one, meaning you need to know 3cycles between any 3 pieces of the same type, in any orientation. This is definitely a lot faster than the former method. However, the BH method uses move optimal commutators. It is more common to use 3-style, which is the same concept as BH, but the algs are speed optimal, not move optimal.

Yes, the method I used solves EO, CO, EP and CP separately and in that order (except for permutation parity). As I haven't looked into any of the methods you mention, it's a bit hard to grasp, but how much alg memorisation are we talking about? Are the commutators improvised during solves? I know enough about commutators to be able to solve a cube with them, albeit very slowly (several minutes). Based on what you write, it seems there's a choice between the BH method and 3-style, or are these variants of the same method? Which would you say makes the most sense to learn in my situation?

I read a bit online, and this makes me pause:

The 3-style method has 818 algorithms, making it seem like it should be at the end of the spectrum of methods.

There's no way I'm going to learn 818 algs. The method I used before requires only a handful of algs and it took a week to learn even though I averaged something like 50 seconds at normal 3x3 when I learnt it. I expect to put in more work than that, but learning hundreds of algs is way too much.

 

[fes_77]

I read a bit online, and this makes me pause:


There's no way I'm going to learn 818 algs. The method I used before requires only a handful of algs and it took a week to learn even though I averaged something like 50 seconds at normal 3x3 when I learnt it. I expect to put in more work than that, but learning hundreds of algs is way too much.

I don't know 3style but in my attempt of learning it I've heard that its just like F2L, 3style does have 818 cases but you only need to look at the alg if you want to see if the way you find it is most efficient

 

[Jorian Meeuse]

3style is better than BH.
Those 818 algs aren't actually 818 algs. Almost all of them are intuitively comprehensible. Sure, it's not 'easy' to learn, but if you understand commutators, it's more than possible. (Compare the number of people who use 3style to the number of people who use full ZBLL)

 

[EthanMCuber]

I think a simpler (and less alg-based) option would be orozco (which I use). There aren't really any algs (except for parity).

 

[Mike Hughey]

Right. I suggest you learn M2 for edges and old Pochmann or something similar for corners. From there you can move towards 3style. M2 and old Pochmann will get you out of orient-permute mode, and then once you've learned it you can learn 3-style to get faster. Just M2 - old Pochmann should be enough to get sub 1:30. Then you can decide how far you want to go from there.

 

[Thom S.]

Are the commutators improvised during solves? I know enough about commutators to be able to solve a cube with them, albeit very slowly (several minutes).

3-Style, in it's core concept, uses commutators, each of them cycling 3 pieces while solving 2 of them.
If one has a good enough grasp on the concept of commutators, improvising them on the fly is completely possible. Although, coming up with commutators that orient and permute separately is easier than coming up with ones that combine the two.

3-Style today is seen as THE method, with easier ones having been developed.
If you learnt 3BLD 14/15 years ago, you already have heard of Old Pochmann, M2(and R2) and TuRBo in the past. Old Pochmann is typically taught as the Beginner Method and M2 as the Next Step, TuRBo is typically ignored today, R2(and R2+) as you might remember never really took off, but Orozco has risen in popularity.

Orozco, simplified, uses some commutators(about 18 or so) and setup Moves, a combination so to speak.

As said by others I would also recommend starting with Old Pochmann to get into Blindsolving again as this would act as a clean restart into the matter. Old Pochmann actually makes it possible to incorporate commutators if you know what you're doing but that's for later.

 

[Snigel]

Thank you all for your answers and comments; much appreciated!

3style is better than BH.
Those 818 algs aren't actually 818 algs. Almost all of them are intuitively comprehensible. Sure, it's not 'easy' to learn, but if you understand commutators, it's more than possible. (Compare the number of people who use 3style to the number of people who use full ZBLL)

Thank you for clarifying! I don't know what the numbers are at all, but I would assume that 3style is much easier than ZBL. In terms of memorisation, I think I can cope with something like full OLL (which I have learnt), but not something much bigger than that.

Right. I suggest you learn M2 for edges and old Pochmann or something similar for corners. From there you can move towards 3style. M2 and old Pochmann will get you out of orient-permute mode, and then once you've learned it you can learn 3-style to get faster. Just M2 - old Pochmann should be enough to get sub 1:30. Then you can decide how far you want to go from there.

Would you say I should try to do this directly, or should I learn full Old Pochmann first, and then learn M2 for edges?

3-Style, in it's core concept, uses commutators, each of them cycling 3 pieces while solving 2 of them.
If one has a good enough grasp on the concept of commutators, improvising them on the fly is completely possible. Although, coming up with commutators that orient and permute separately is easier than coming up with ones that combine the two.

I asked this mainly because if doing commutators on the fly was a prerequisite for using the method successfully, it wouldn't work as I don't know commutators well enough. On the other hand, learning the method might be a good way to get better at commutators, too. I'll follow the advice in your and Mike's posts about learning Old Pochman first!

3-Style today is seen as THE method, with easier ones having been developed.
If you learnt 3BLD 14/15 years ago, you already have heard of Old Pochmann, M2(and R2) and TuRBo in the past. Old Pochmann is typically taught as the Beginner Method and M2 as the Next Step, TuRBo is typically ignored today, R2(and R2+) as you might remember never really took off, but Orozco has risen in popularity.

Yes, I remember M2 being mentioned quite a lot, but I think I saw it after I learnt the other method, and I wasn't interested enough back then to learn more than one method to accomplish the same thing.

 

[CatoWeeksbooth]

Thank you for clarifying! I don't know what the numbers are at all, but I would assume that 3style is much easier than ZBL. In terms of memorisation, I think I can cope with something like full OLL (which I have learnt), but not something much bigger than that.

I don't think I could cope with full OLL, but I can cope with 3-style. One of the reasons I enjoy 3-style is that it can be done without memorising anything at all: You just make things up during the solve. By doing a lot of solves, you will gradually start to remember many cases you have seen before, without even trying. If you are ambitious, you can later look up the optimized commutators used by experts and gradually learn them and implement them in your solves.

If you don't like memorisation, 3-style is one of the easiest and most fun ways to solve a cube, even for sighted solves. Getting really fast as 3-style is difficult and takes a lot of work, but the work is much more fun than drilling algs for something like CFOP.

 

[guelda]

Hi! I suggest you take a look at the intuitive method proposed by dudefaceguy, very cool I think!

Intuitive 3-Style as a Beginner Blind Method

I recently learned 3-style as my first blind method. I did it completely intuitively, without memorizing any algorithms. This is an explanation of what I did, and a collection of the resources that I used. I hope that it will be helpful to others who want to learn 3-style intuitively for fun...

www.speedsolving.com

 

[Snigel]

I don't think I could cope with full OLL, but I can cope with 3-style. One of the reasons I enjoy 3-style is that it can be done without memorising anything at all: You just make things up during the solve. By doing a lot of solves, you will gradually start to remember many cases you have seen before, without even trying. If you are ambitious, you can later look up the optimized commutators used by experts and gradually learn them and implement them in your solves.

If you don't like memorisation, 3-style is one of the easiest and most fun ways to solve a cube, even for sighted solves. Getting really fast as 3-style is difficult and takes a lot of work, but the work is much more fun than drilling algs for something like CFOP.

Hi! I suggest you take a look at the intuitive method proposed by dudefaceguy, very cool I think!

Intuitive 3-Style as a Beginner Blind Method

I recently learned 3-style as my first blind method. I did it completely intuitively, without memorizing any algorithms. This is an explanation of what I did, and a collection of the resources that I used. I hope that it will be helpful to others who want to learn 3-style intuitively for fun...

www.speedsolving.com

Thank you for the suggestions! My concern with this approach is that I fear I don't have the general cube knowledge to make it work. like I said, I know what commutators are, and I have used them for corners in FMC with Heise (also 15 years ago), but improvising them while blindfolded seems like a different world. I probably overestimate the difficulty, but ti's hard to know how difficult something is before starting. I've seen many people say that commutators are easy, but I've never felt they're easy. :

 

[guelda]

I certainly can relate!
I've just tried a bit 3BLD for fun (only a few completed solves, ie. no DNF) and tried OP/OP, which was good and probably fast enough, but it was a bit "braindead". So learnt M2 for the edges, which was indeed more fun, and faster. Then I found the post by dudefaceguy which is really enjoyed. So I decided to give it a try, not rushing at all, and it is really satisfying for the mind. In fact, it is quite the same as the Eka method, the principle is the same. I then quit 3BLD because memo was a bit difficult... 0

But tbh I think OP/M2 is really fine to have fun and you can still be quite fast with it, and it's just a few algs!

 

[Thom S.]

I've seen many people say that commutators are easy, but I've never felt they're easy. :

Commutators in my view are a very subjective thing.
We as the community managed to break down nxn cubes in such a way that every minute step is taught using short algorithms because intuitive thinking ends up being slower than memorized and practiced algorithms in most tasks.
So for many newer cubers, understanding commutators in an intuitive way is their first exposure to cube theory and the more mathematical side, which sometimes is too overwhelming at once.

 

[abunickabhi]

Learn a new one.

Commutators are easy to grasp.

Happy BLDing!