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Two questions about how you started doing blindfolded solves

JasonDL13

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Hello people.

I want to ask you two questions.

1. Did you do 2x2 blindfolded before 3x3 blindfolded?
2. How did you start to do blindfolded solves? How did you learn about it?

I did do 2BLD before 3BLD. And Maskow inspired me to do BLD solves. I learned off of about 3 videos for 2BLD before actually learning. Then it took me 2 videos and the Old Pochmann website to learn 3BLD.

Thanks.
 

TDM

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1. I tried 2x2, but then gave up half way through my first sighted solve. I came back to BLD a while later and actually tried, starting with 3x3.
2. I learned memo from Stefan's website, and permuted everything with T perms - but I can't remember where I got that idea from. It might have been my own idea to avoid having to learn extra PLLs that I didn't want to have to learn (it was a long time ago...), or it could have been something else. But I can't remember.
 

slinky773

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Hello people.

I want to ask you two questions.

1. Did you do 2x2 blindfolded before 3x3 blindfolded?
2. How did you start to do blindfolded solves? How did you learn about it?

I did do 2BLD before 3BLD. And Maskow inspired me to do BLD solves. I learned off of about 3 videos for 2BLD before actually learning. Then it took me 2 videos and the Old Pochmann website to learn 3BLD.

Thanks.

1. Nope. I have no interest in doing 2BLD because really, the fastest way would be using 1-look EG. So if you would want to be competitive in 2BLD, you would just have to be really good at regular 2x2 and have a short inspection. Anything else would be slow and tedious. So until I get fast at 2x2 and get good at one looking, I'm not going to have much interest in 2BLD.

2. A long time ago, I learned OP/OP method from badmephisto. I did lots of sighted solves just for fun, but I didn't feel like doing full BLD solves because I didn't have a good memo system. It seemed like it would take forever, considering that my only method for memo was visual, AKA just tracing out the memo on the cube with my finger. I kind of set 3BLD aside at that time. Then, when I started going to competitions, my dad suggested that I might be good at 3BLD if I competed. I watched Noah's videos on 3BLD and learned Speffz and letter pairs. I got my first success on that day (or maybe the day after). It was around 14 minutes. Now, I use M2/OP with Speffz and images for edges and audio for corners. I'm down to sub-4 now, as of today. I find that I'm getting faster at 3BLD really quickly. I guess it's because learning your letter scheme well cuts down your memo time by a lot. Currently, my execution time is about 1 minute or so and I memo in about 2-3 minutes. PB is 3:25. When I get to around 2 minutes, I'll learn 3-style and go on from there.

I knew about Maskow before I started doing 3BLD, and I thought he was amazing. Now, my goal is to be on the same competitive level as him at multiblind. It may never happen. But that's my end goal. :)
 

Cale S

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I practiced 2BLD until I was around 1:20 before learning 3x3 edges.
I watched Noah's tutorial, and learned the concepts of buffers and cycles from there, as well as Old Pochmann corners. I started learning M2 and how it worked, but I was too lazy to learn the algorithms for M slice targets, so I used Old Pochmann for edges instead (which I learned from Zane's video). Because I understood how M2 worked, it was easier for me to switch later. I think Noah's video is by far the best video to learn from, especially because of the way he explains how cycles work.

The way I practiced at first was by doing corners only solves, then edges only solves, and then doing full attempts.
 
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Smiles

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1. no I just wanted to learn 3bld
2. started with old pochmann, already knowing EO and CO algs. used T and J perms. memo method was images like pochmanns site, took 20 mins on my first attempt and success'd! switched to speffz lettering asap.
 

Tao Yu

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1. No, but I did do some corners only 3BLD solves before going onto a full BLD solve.

2. I learned OP/OP from Joël van Noort's tutorial (which apparently doesn't exist anymore. It used to be at this URL).
 

goodatthis

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I learned OP corners from Noah's tutorial, and tried to learn M2, but I just decided to learn OP edges instead. I did a few corner solves before I started incorporating edges, and I just did lots and lots of sighted solves until I did my first attempt. My first attempt was DNF because of a incorrectly memoed piece, second and third were DNFs because I AUFed the wrong way at the end of the lefty R perm parity alg. Fourth was success in 13 minutes exactly.
 

Ranzha

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1. No
2. On my own for a while, then considered T-perms and J-perms while orienting before to cut down on the number of labels I had to make, saw an OP video and switched corner buffer to UBL and used Y-perms, and that's how I got POOP. Much later, started setting targets up to U-perms and E2' comms (like [L' U2 L, E2']) and [M', U2] cases. That's where I'm about now.
 

Fawn

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1. I did, but it was all SpeedBLD. No, I don't know EG. I don't even know Ortega.
2. I started after seeing Maskow's 41/41 MultiBLD. I originally learned OP/OP, but I practiced edges alone for a long time before returning to corners. My first success was using Turbo edges. Corners are easy peasy anyway.
 

G2013

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1. Did you do 2x2 blindfolded before 3x3 blindfolded?
Yes, the 2x2 was the first cube that I successfully solved bindfolded. After that came the 2x2x3 and some failed pyraminx attemps.

2. How did you start doing blindfolded solves? How did you learn about it?
First I made my own letter scheme, that was 1 edge 1 letter
UL=A
UB=B
UR=C
UF=D
LF=E
FR=F
RB=G
BL=H
DF=I
DR=J
DB=K
DL=L
and when an edge was unoriented it was "X2" (X being any letter). It wasn't very efficient, so I decided to memorize orientation and permutation separately, memorizing orientation visually.
After that, I watched a lot of videos about corner and edges methods and I took the easiest parts of them and made a method that actually is Old-Pochmann but orienting first. Now I'm switching to M2 for edges and orient then permute for corners.

So basically I taught myself watching a lot of videos of a lot of things. Time transcurred between first BLD video and first 3BLD success: about a year (wow)
Time transcurred between first 3BLD success and first official 3BLD success: a lot.
 

JasonDL13

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Thanks to everyone who has posted so far. It's intrestring to see how some people almost made up there own method to doing it.

2. I learned OP/OP from Joël van Noort's tutorial (which apparently doesn't exist anymore. It used to be at this URL).

Incase someone else or you want to see it:
https://web.archive.org/web/2012060...hecube.110mb.com/index.php?location=blindfold

2. I started after seeing Maskow's 41/41 MultiBLD. I originally learned OP/OP

That's like me
 

sneaklyfox

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1. Did you do 2x2 blindfolded before 3x3 blindfolded? No.
2. How did you start to do blindfolded solves? How did you learn about it? Watched badmephisto and a couple other videos that had stuff on Speffz, letter pairs, visual memo, and journey method. I figured out my own system with letters that I liked to use (different from Speffz) and dabbled in a few memory methods to see which one I liked better. At first I didn't want to bother spending a lot of time memorizing something and then not having a success because it would feel like too much of a waste of time. I started with OP/OP and just did it sighted. Then after my letter system was in place I would write down what I needed to memorize on a piece of paper, hold the cube under the desk, and solve while staring at my cheat sheet. At least this way I knew I was doing the right thing. Then last was doing the memorization. My first success took 15-20 mins. I didn't have a lot of fails because I would check and recheck my memo to make sure I could get a success but it took a long time. I was never too keen on BLD solving so never practiced it. Just wasn't that interesting to me to get fast at it. Later learned M2.
 

cmhardw

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1. Did you do 2x2 blindfolded before 3x3 blindfolded?

No.

2. How did you start to do blindfolded solves? How did you learn about it?

I'm pretty sure my first ever blindsolve was a speedBLD solve. I recorded it. After that I learned from Richard Carr that you could memorize the cube first, then solve it. He was using a system where you memorize the static position of the cube pieces, then use algorithms to solve pieces while updating your memory for which pieces remained unsolved and their new locations if you changed them. I didn't learn his whole method, just enough to know the basic idea of what he was doing. I did maybe 2-3 solves that way (memorize the current permutation of the cube and use short cycles to solve pieces 1 or 2 at a time, while updating my memo).

At Worlds 2003 I shared a cab ride with Dror Vomberg (he became 3x3x3 BLD and 4x4x4 BLD world champion that year) on the way to a TV interview for Canada AM. You can see pictures of the interview here. During the cab ride, Dror taught me about memorizing and solving with cycles and the general overview of the Orient/Permute method (which he used at the time). That was pretty much the moment I first got hooked on BLD solving, so many thanks to Dror! :D
 

Chenkar

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1 since I learned basic op for the corners, I obviously tried 2x2 to test myself
2 I actually got the crazy idea that I would learn bld, then oh, and then do bld oh. Lol. I'm still working on my memory method cause I keep forgetting, but I have had the ocasional success
 

MasterOwel

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1. I've started with a 3x3, I don't even own a 2x2 yet (though it is being shipped)

2. I learned by seeing side clips of people doing it in competition videos, and so I've just been doing random research. I get stumped a lot on thins like this

Just started doing blind solves actually
 

STOCKY7

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1. Did you do 2x2 blindfolded before 3x3 blindfolded?
Nope

2. How did you start to do blindfolded solves? How did you learn about it?
I think from bedmephistos turtorial on OP 3 years ago and practiced it on and off... the rest is history.
Slowly still improving.
 

josh42732

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1. I did 2x2 BLD to practice OP corners (with a 4x4 used like a 2x2)

2. I had just learned how to solve the cube and thought that it would be really impressive if I could do it blind, so I watched Zane Carney do it then watched his tutorial and have been improving ever since then. I watch Noah's videos to improve. I also watched Zane's M2 tutorial and learned that way.
 
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