[Member Intro] Slow starter

newtonbase

newtonbase

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Hi all. I first tried to solve a cube in the early 80s and never managed more than one side. 30 years later and my nephew gave me his spare cube (he got a speed cube for Christmas) and I'm hooked. It's been six days and my PB is 2:52 using a beginner's method from YouTube. I'm now working on learning F2L. My times have taken a little bit but I'm sure it will help once I've got the hang of it. I have a Zhanchi in the post from Amazon as the original Rubik's Cube I'm using is STIFF.

This site seems full of good info that should help me hit my target time of sub 1 minute.
 
Thanks all. You are probably right that I won't stop at under a minute. I have looked at a couple of the Bad Mephisto vids onYoutube already and they are helping.

Seems my new cube won't get here for another 4 days. My current cube is too stiff to turn without grabbing with a whole hand and locks constantly so being able to use single fingers will be a great improvement.
 
If your rubiks cube is stiff then loosen it.
You will probably be at least sub 1:30 in about two months.
For your speed a rubiks brand is great but good luck with your zanchi.
 
Welcome!

After F2L, the next step would probably be 4LLL. I have a guide on my website that should help you greatly; there's a link to it in my signature below. That should get you to around 40 seconds.
 
Thanks ThomasJE. I'll look at 4LLL once I have F2L mastered (which I'm getting the hang of slowly).

My Zhanchi arrived a today. I find it a little hard to control as I'm used to a cube that usually needs needs 2 hands to coax a move out of it so I'm making a lot of silly mistakes but it's going to be great. On a rare occasion I didn't do anything wrong I dropped my PB from 2:30 to 1:59 which I'm delighted with.

I lose an awful lot of time finding the edges when I'm doing F2L. Maybe I need to be looking ahead more when I'm doing the cross. Or maybe I just need more sleep.
 
At your level the issue isn't really looking ahead, I suppose the issue is rather the recognize cases and actually do the moves. If I were you I would already start to learn the 4LL algs on the side ( one a day is good if you're still working on F2L intensively ). Also try to time your cross. I'm sure at 2mn you probably take anywhere between 10 and 20sec. With a bit of practice you can easily drop it to 7-10. So if you're confident with the last layer with the beginner method, I'd almost stop solving it for a while. Learn 2 look OLL/PLL, and focus on F2L ( so cross included ). For a week you might not feel the progress, since your LL will be a "work in progress", but as soon as you reach it, with your improvements on F2L, you'll be doing a jump. This should put you close to 1mn already.

Also, about progress, it all depends on the time you have. The more time the better of course, but the most important is to do at least a little bit every day. I'm pretty new as well, I was pretty much at where you are a month ago, I average 40.xxsec at the moment. My target was to get sub 60 for christmas, I finally even managed sub 50 for christmas.

And for the zhanchi, for mine I used to set it quite tight when I first got it, after a few days of solves sexy moves and LL algs, it got well broken in already which made it somewhat a little slower and smoother ( less clicky ), which really pleased me.

All in all, welcome and good luck !
And .. practice .. practice .. practice :P
 
Well, tonight I got my first pop, adjusted my cube for the first time and then dropped my PB from 1:38 to 1:14 (which shocked me a little). I'm getting much better at F2L and am cutting out lots of mistakes too so I've had my first look at 4LLL which I'm looking forward to learning.
I also had a look at solving one handed but my hands are far too small to move it the way I've seen on Youtube. I just can't get my fingers round to the front of the cube so I'll leave that alone for now. Maybe I'll get a smaller cube one day.
 
Today is my cubiversary. One year since I solved my first cube.
PB single is 26s but I average around 40s. I have lots of different puzzles including 3x3 shape mods, skewb, megaminx, square one (which I can't solve as I don't like it) and some larger cubes up to 7x7. It's been a great year. Next year I'd like to learn 3BLD and I'll try to get to a comp.
 
wow you've come a long way! congrats.
blind solving is actually so fun, and probably one of the most impressive things you can do with a cube.
 
Thanks. My average hasn't improved for months but I blame my baby son for that. I'm pleased that I can solve lots of different cubes though.

I've been wanting to learn 3BLD for ages but I would like some dedicated time to learn it but I don't get that at the moment. Maybe I should just try to break it down into little bite sized chunks.
 
newtonbase said:
Today is my cubiversary. One year since I solved my first cube.
PB single is 26s but I average around 40s. I have lots of different puzzles including 3x3 shape mods, skewb, megaminx, square one (which I can't solve as I don't like it) and some larger cubes up to 7x7. It's been a great year. Next year I'd like to learn 3BLD and I'll try to get to a comp.
Click to expand...

Congrats :) I'd like to learn 3BLD better this coming year as well. Let's work on it!
 
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