Some advice people give that I don't agree with

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I totally agree with your first argument. A rubiks brand with CRC is a really good cube imo (considering it takes like 5 min to lube and break the lube in) I can average nearly the same with mine. The only reason I use dayan cubes is for consistency but beginners are inconsistent anyway and should look into a speed cube after his or her first sub 40 single with his rubiks brand. But the main benefit is that it makes you appreciate the speedcube you're using.
 
Smiles said:
Before Zhanchis existed, people subbed 10 on Guhongs. I don't see why having a Zhanchi is so important to sub-30 solvers.
Click to expand...
And in 2010, people subbed 10 on A5's.
I have some things too.
3. Lookahead is overrated.
Let me give you a perfect example. Kevin Hays. I do remember Dan on 5x5 saying:
"Hays has no lookahead. Imagine if he DID have lookahead."
Me: That would be extremely scary. He would break all the records.
Hays has lightning fast recognition, to make up for his lack of no lookahead, yet if he has no recognition, why should he be sub-10? I heard someone on the forum a while ago saying:
someone said:
"If you want to be sub-15, you have to lookahead or you'll never get there."
Click to expand...
But why should I lookahead if there's a perfectly good cuber who's very fast who doesn't really use it at all? I'm not saying lookahead is bad, in fact, Lookahead is very useful and gives you an advantage. but you can definitely work on other things to make you faster, because you don't need lookahead to sub-15. You don't even need lookahead to sub-10, you guys.
 
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sneaklyfox said:
Actually this describes me. I went from a storebought to a Guhong...
Click to expand...

Well I'm not saying that drastic change is bad, since I did the exact same thing. But it depends on when you switched to it. If you were already consistent on the storebought cube when you switched, then it was a good thing to do. If you were annoyed at your storebought for being a bad cube, then I guess whatever works for you works.

What I don't encourage is switching simply because the Guhong is supposed to make your times better (unless your improvement has slowed due to a bad cube).
 
PandaCuber said:
The 2nd one is just stupid freakin advice. Who says that?
Click to expand...
I know some people who actually recommended it 2-3 years ago. It's supposed to help because you're not distracted by the LL stickers, so you can find F2L pieces faster. I've tried it and it didn't work for me at all, but it somehow worked for some people. I don't think it trains you to you ignore the LL when you're solving F2L on a fully-stickered cube. I'm not sure what's up with it.
 
I'm going to address the 2nd point first: Although this is a somewhat common technique for practicing f2l, I don't see this recommended as often as it was a few years ago. Either way, it is a practice technique... it will work well for some and may not help others at all. This one is kind of hard to argue for or against, because the experience will be somewhat different everyone. Personally, I never tried it... no particular reason, just didn't take the time. This practice techniques certainly isn't necessary, but I wouldn't go so far as to say there is anything wrong with it.

As for your first point. You seem to be focusing primarily on corner cutting as others' motivation for recommending good cubes to beginners. While corner cutting is a nice bonus (as you point out), this has little to do with me recommending beginners get decent cubes to start with. My recommendations are based on health and technique.

Health: Rubik's brand cubes are hard to turn... that is just a fact of life. Yes, they can be improved dramatically with lube and some sandpaper... but even then they do not perform as well as even a Ghost Hand cube which can be had VERY cheaply. The amount of effort required to turn most name brand cubes is not healthy. I understand the argument that a cube that is more difficult to turn will build finger strength and that will help in the long run, but I believe that logic is flawed. Have you noticed what part(s) of your hands/forearms begin to hurt after using a stiff cube for some time? It is typically not the muscle, but the tendons instead. Putting stress on tendons isn't the way to build strength, it is the way to get carpal tunnel. I am 30 years old, and have been a computer buff since my childhood, have been cubing extensively for six years, have been playing drums (mostly rudimental) since the age of eight, spent five years in college as a percussion major, and currently teach high school band. I, unfortunately, understand the potential damage to wrists and forearms all too well. Trust me, its worth the extra few dollars to get a good cube if it means saving your hands/arms.

Technique: Back in the 1800's,(more like the mid 1990's) when I was in high school, "touch keyboarding" first began to be a requirement for students. Back then, few people really used correct technique when typing. Looking back, some of the "self-developed" techniques for typing were pretty laughable. The two finger technique, the four fingers on one hand and one on the other technique, the little circles people would trace in the air while searching for a key, not to mention the furious up and down motion people made with their heads while glancing from the keyboard to the monitor and back. By then I had already been messing with computers for a few years, so I had developed my own form of "touch keyboarding." My method utilized all fingers (some more than others) and included what BLD solvers would probably dub a "floating home row." I stared at the keyboard, and would only look at the monitor after each paragraph. (if then) While this technique was not very efficient or ergonomic, it allowed me to type somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 wpm. While 30 wpm is pretty slow by today's standards, it put me well in front of anyone else in my class at the time. It also put me 10 wpm above the required score for an A in the class, so I could easily have slacked for the entire semester and gotten an A anyway. Instead, I decided that it was finally time to learn to type "correctly." During that semester I forced myself to use correct technique. Initially, my speed and accuracy dropped significantly, but by the end of the semester I was up to 60-80 wpm with correct technique. While much faster than average, that is still not amazing. However, it was more than double what I was accomplishing previously.

What my long winded parable is meant to bestow, is that technique should be emphasized from the very beginning, and "proper" technique with a brand name cube is nearly impossible without very heavy modding. Be it typing, weightlifting, running, swimming, playing an instrument, ballet, etc etc etc; technique is always taught first, not in the middle. After six years of cubing, I am still trying to break bad turning habits I developed when using my first cube. (and it was modded and better than most)


If this were something like competitive archery, I could understand. The price difference between a base model bow and a top of the line professional bow is thousands of dollars, and the base models aren't that bad... they only need a few relatively inexpensive accessories and you are set for awhile. With cubing however, the price difference between the "base model" you can get from a chain store and the top of the line cubes (excluding customized cubes) is less than ten dollars, and the "base model" is really bad.

*end rant
 
There's a lot I could say about the first point but there's already been a lot of discussion about it- if I were to argue for or against I know exactly what someone would come back with and what I'd come back with to that. With all good reasons on both sides.

The only thing I'd like to add is my personal problem with using stiff cubes. My cube as you know is very loose and, well fragile. To use a stiff cube encourages a rough (yet accurate tho) turnstyle, so I explode my cube a lot. The only thing I can take from is is perhaps a very smooth cube that has little corner cutting may be the solution.
 
I've been trying to stop people thinking the first moronic point for years, but **** it.

If you want to waste time having to relearn how to turn a cube that's fine by me.
 
Gogo one sided unsupported etc

Relearn how to turn a cube? I don't believe it's quite as dramatic as you make it seem. Feel free to destroy this barbarically in your own Kirjava way but IMO learning to turn more gently is not nearly as hard as learning to turn more accurately.

As you say it's terrible to have a rough turn style, not being able to turn a cube well. That can be worked on. I did it. I'm still quite bad at turning, but I don't blame it on my storebought cube. It's simply because I didn't work on it.

Accurate turning is much harder to (re)develop. However, not turning accurately isn't so terrible. People therefore can live without it unlike rough turning which people are forced to work on. I see fairly fast cubers with innacurate turning. Ok, is this a huge problem- debatable. But turning accurately allows for faster turning- less lockups, pops.
 
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Kirjava said:
Relearning is relearning is relearning.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Sloppy turning is from laziness anyway, and its the cuber not the cube. Some cubes may provide the possibility for a greater level of sloppiness, but its the cuber who becomes sloppy in the end, not the cube. Obviously. I don't see what the point of this arguement even is, it's pretty clear to me. There is a disadvantage to giving a cube which is capable of letting you develop sloppy turning if you are the kind of person who would fall into that habit. There isn't for someone who doesn't have this predisposition however.
 
I'm 24 years older than Carson and I agree with him. When I ordered a Guhong it was because I was curious, not because I planned on getting into speed cubing. It was the sweet feel of the cube that dragged me in. I started with a V-cube 7x7x7 and after a few hours on that my hands hurt. With a Shengshou that doesn't happen.

As far as the corner cutting, my times are better the less clicking sounds I'm making. The corner cutting is so that you don't spend your look-ahead time practicing the art of figuring out where you were in your algorithm when the cube locked up. Torpedoes are so you don't have to do the same thing when your cube pops. These are improvements; they allow you to concentrate on the already difficult enough task of recognition (and soon enough, look ahead).

I've got a cube with the last layer stickers removed. For me this was an easy test to make, I plan on painting it anyway, and replace yellow with black, so why not take the LL stickers off and see how that works? I've not used it much; can't really say how useful it is. I think it's moderately useful for beginners who are otherwise faced with too much confusion.

Also, I bought a metronome and got immediate intuitive F2L improvement from using it for just a hundred solves. I believe that I could have got to the same place by following the advice "slow down", but the metronome somehow made it easier for me.
 
1. Get whatever really nice speed cube you want, right away.
2. Practice accurate turning on it instead of being lazy, and let speed come naturally as a result of accurate turning.
3. Profit by not having to relearn anything, and being able to turn fast and accurately.

Or, if a person has no self control, they can do the lazy, less effective thing and get a cube with poor corner cutting to force themselves to turn faster, which as Kirjava said just results in having to relearn other things later.

Both sides of this debate act like it's impossible to practice accurate turning on a cube that doesn't enforce it. Self control is all that's needed. If a person can't control themselves during a solve, maybe they should go the extra stupid mile and try solving with their elbows to enforce slower turning for look ahead.
 
I suspect one handed practice is very useful for two-handed look ahead practice, provided you follow your usual algorithms. But one handed practice makes my hands hurt. I wonder if it's a good finger exercise or if it's carpal tunnel on its way.
 
Going from a good cube to a bad cube makes you feel as though you have to turn more accurately. This does not necessarily mean that going from a bad cube to a good cube means you will continue to turn accurately. In my mind you're actually more likely to enjoy exploiting the ease of turning in a good cube. There is a distinction between adapting to the constraints of your cube and training your 'own' technical constraints.

However, I do actually think that training with a tighter, yet good, cube is a decent idea, as long as you force yourself to train with both. I don't think there is value in 'progressing' throughout your cubing career from bad to good.
 
I see there's a lot of discussion about the first point.
To clarify, exactly what I mean is that beginning with a worse cube should not harm your cubing, and should make you more precise.

And when I said bad cube I didn't mean an unspeedcubeable cube. If you just went out to the dollar store and bought a cube, I'm not saying that's the thing that'll make you a great cuber. My "bad cube" was lubed and broken in. It was not hard to turn and I did not need to use weird techniques to turn it. A Rubik's storebought cube can be a valid speedcube.

That being said, starting with a bad cube is not always good, for example, like you guys are saying, if the cube is hard to turn then it's not going to help.

I also understand that beginning with a good cube will not harm you either. I addressed this in an earlier post. What I don't recommend is switching to a really good speedcube before speed is a factor in one's solves. I found that speed was not a great factor in my solves until sub 20.

I'm not telling people to go buy a bad cube, but many people have a Rubik's cube sitting in their house, and simply lubing it often makes it a good enough speedcube to learn with. But if they dont have a cube and they are willing to wait for a good cube to be delivered, that's fine too.

Before I was going to get a better cube, I did some research and at I decided to get a Guhong instead of a Zhanchi, because I was beginning to get annoyed at my corner cutting ability (average 25s, before I knew about slowing down during F2L, so I wasn't even slowing down at all). Needless to say, I never really needed to corner cut on the Guhong. I'm obviously not as precise as before, but I still rarely corner cut and my speed has improved.
 
Carson said:
I'm going to address the 2nd point first: Although this is a somewhat common technique for practicing f2l, I don't see this recommended as often as it was a few years ago. Either way, it is a practice technique... it will work well for some and may not help others at all. This one is kind of hard to argue for or against, because the experience will be somewhat different everyone. Personally, I never tried it... no particular reason, just didn't take the time. This practice techniques certainly isn't necessary, but I wouldn't go so far as to say there is anything wrong with it.

As for your first point. You seem to be focusing primarily on corner cutting as others' motivation for recommending good cubes to beginners. While corner cutting is a nice bonus (as you point out), this has little to do with me recommending beginners get decent cubes to start with. My recommendations are based on health and technique.

Health: Rubik's brand cubes are hard to turn... that is just a fact of life. Yes, they can be improved dramatically with lube and some sandpaper... but even then they do not perform as well as even a Ghost Hand cube which can be had VERY cheaply. The amount of effort required to turn most name brand cubes is not healthy. I understand the argument that a cube that is more difficult to turn will build finger strength and that will help in the long run, but I believe that logic is flawed. Have you noticed what part(s) of your hands/forearms begin to hurt after using a stiff cube for some time? It is typically not the muscle, but the tendons instead. Putting stress on tendons isn't the way to build strength, it is the way to get carpal tunnel. I am 30 years old, and have been a computer buff since my childhood, have been cubing extensively for six years, have been playing drums (mostly rudimental) since the age of eight, spent five years in college as a percussion major, and currently teach high school band. I, unfortunately, understand the potential damage to wrists and forearms all too well. Trust me, its worth the extra few dollars to get a good cube if it means saving your hands/arms.

Technique: Back in the 1800's,(more like the mid 1990's) when I was in high school, "touch keyboarding" first began to be a requirement for students. Back then, few people really used correct technique when typing. Looking back, some of the "self-developed" techniques for typing were pretty laughable. The two finger technique, the four fingers on one hand and one on the other technique, the little circles people would trace in the air while searching for a key, not to mention the furious up and down motion people made with their heads while glancing from the keyboard to the monitor and back. By then I had already been messing with computers for a few years, so I had developed my own form of "touch keyboarding." My method utilized all fingers (some more than others) and included what BLD solvers would probably dub a "floating home row." I stared at the keyboard, and would only look at the monitor after each paragraph. (if then) While this technique was not very efficient or ergonomic, it allowed me to type somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 wpm. While 30 wpm is pretty slow by today's standards, it put me well in front of anyone else in my class at the time. It also put me 10 wpm above the required score for an A in the class, so I could easily have slacked for the entire semester and gotten an A anyway. Instead, I decided that it was finally time to learn to type "correctly." During that semester I forced myself to use correct technique. Initially, my speed and accuracy dropped significantly, but by the end of the semester I was up to 60-80 wpm with correct technique. While much faster than average, that is still not amazing. However, it was more than double what I was accomplishing previously.

What my long winded parable is meant to bestow, is that technique should be emphasized from the very beginning, and "proper" technique with a brand name cube is nearly impossible without very heavy modding. Be it typing, weightlifting, running, swimming, playing an instrument, ballet, etc etc etc; technique is always taught first, not in the middle. After six years of cubing, I am still trying to break bad turning habits I developed when using my first cube. (and it was modded and better than most)


If this were something like competitive archery, I could understand. The price difference between a base model bow and a top of the line professional bow is thousands of dollars, and the base models aren't that bad... they only need a few relatively inexpensive accessories and you are set for awhile. With cubing however, the price difference between the "base model" you can get from a chain store and the top of the line cubes (excluding customized cubes) is less than ten dollars, and the "base model" is really bad.

*end rant
Click to expand...

Yeah it all sounds reasonable to me, but I guess I didn't make it clear, a "bad" cube doesn't necessarily have to be hard to turn. For a long time, around the time I started cubing, idk why it was but my cube was harder to turn than other people's. But even then, it took many, many solves for my hands to get tired. They didn't hurt, they just got tired and I stopped.

But it was lubed with Vaseline, and Silicone would have done better. Other people had Vaseline too, so my cube had problems.

Anyway, the point of having a bad cube is to develop precise turning and adapt to no corners being cut. And if it develops muscle at all, it's technique and muscle memory. I think that having an easy-to-turn cube while not being able to corner cut will disallow you from making errors in turns, the consequence being a lock up. And if you start with a Zhanchi, for example, there's more margin for error when you turn. Taking advantage of that margin will just develop error in your turns, if that makes sense.

Kirjava said:
I like everything else you've said, but this just seems like something you want to be true but actually isn't.
Click to expand...

Well it's not just a belief, I actually am more precise because of how long I used a bad cube. I used it until my average time was 23 seconds. I still didn't really have a problem with the cube, it's just that I already ordered a Guhong and that's when it arrived.

And, I do believe what I said to be true because it's all my experience. I wouldn't go strongly recommending a practice unless I knew for sure that it could work. I'm not saying this would work for everyone, since nothing is 100% universal, but it helped me and there's a reason for why it helped me.
 
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