Types of MBLD practice routines

[abunickabhi]

I wish to list out all the types of practice styles a MBLDer can do to improve their craft. The reason to list them out is that I realized clarity (or partial clarity) only after a decade after doing MBLD. Listing out will make the types easier to compare and order according to the style of each MBLDer according their best perception of improvement.

Full practice routines:

1. Do a hour long MBLD attempt (WCA style and the best way to practice)
2. Do risky hour-long attempts (with one lesser pass of memo)
3. Do safe hour-long attempts (with one more pass of memo)
4. Do "short term memory" cube attempts (the cubes we memo in the end of an MBLD attempt, and on which we do one less pass of memo since we execute them first)
5. Do attempts of one pack (8 cubes or 10 cubes depending on the configuration the MBLDer follows)
6. Do old-style attempts to test the MBLD stamina
7. Do N/N attempts (to catalogue the hardness of N/Ns and feel completeness)
8. Do attempts of one palace's equivalent of loci (attempt can be a bit longer than an hour just to make the hour limit feel comfortable)

Pseudo practice routines:

1. Lots of 3BLD solves to improve accuracy and make the exec+trace process as brain-dead as possible
2. Do attempts with unexplored MBLD review system with lesser number of cubes (Experimentation)
3. Do 2/2 MBLD attempts (the 2 cubes we memo in the very end of an MBLD attempt, and on which we do two less passes of memo since we execute them first)
4. Do memory sports events (hour cards, hour binary numbers etc)
5. Design and optimize the review system (no solving involved)
6. Generate statistics within one attempt and among attempts, analyze splits and video (no solving involved)

Please add and remove more points and reorganize according to your correctness and perception. I may be completely wrong about some things since I am not best MBLDer and lack experience and judgement by a big margin.

Disclaimer and a note of caution: I have listed these routines in order that I find important to practice. I have not tested out this "priority order" at all and this may be complete bs and a waste of time for MBLDers faster than me to comment or clear misinformation that I wrote above.

 

[Maddoxer]

What my friend likes to do is start from one cube and ascend from there

Also, I've seen old style multi on people's WCA, but what was the difference?

 

[abunickabhi]

What my friend likes to do is start from one cube and ascend from there

Also, I've seen old style multi on people's WCA, but what was the difference?

MBLD technically starts from 2 cubes.

Old style multi does not have a time limit. So the hour limit is no longer the major constraint.

 

[abunickabhi]

Revisiting this topic,

I feel pack practice is the best way to incrementally improve, all other forms of practice routines are secondary and less effective.

 

[RWH]

Revisiting this topic,

I feel pack practice is the best way to incrementally improve, all other forms of practice routines are secondary and less effective.

Grinding real attempts is the best way to improve, there’s no replacement for practicing the real thing. Everything else is secondary in the improvement process, you gotta grind and push your mind to the limit over and over again or you’ll never build the discipline, stamina, and confidence required to be good at MBLD. If you’ve hit a wall at a certain number and you’re prioritizing less important things instead, it’s simply procrastination to avoid the sucking, forgetting, fatigue and pain that is necessary to get better. It’s really that simple, to get good at MBLD you have to suffer, alot.

With that being said, pack practice is imo the second most important form of practice. It’s great for when you’re short on practice time, derusting after a long break, and for practicing new things that you’re not ready to try in real attempts. They’re also great for trying to break in new palaces, work on storymaking, and practice your short term memory with your pack size. 2passing is ideal for this form of practice also, if you can’t do that your pack size is likely too big for you.

 

[abunickabhi]

I feel a good practical habit during the memorization phase of any sort of attempt is to keep hand over the forehead during the memo phase.

This is similar to chess long thinks where the chess player gets engrossed into the best move by keep both the hands over their forehead. I feel this is harder to do in multi blind, but keeping one hand over forehead works.

This action acts as a good trigger for the brain to focus more on the given task.