Well balanced?

[Rudinie]

I've timed a couple of parts of my solves and would like to know if everything is well balanced or if there are clearly parts that are underdeveloped. My average varies between 26 and 29 seconds, with a pb of 18.78 (pll-skip) and a non lucky pb of 20.04.

For everthing beneat, an avg of 12 is done, i deleted tries where i had a lockup, which i have to be honest happened more then i'd like to admit:

Cross: Avg12: 3.16, best: 1.82, worst: 4.51
Cross + F2L: Avg 12: 16.71, best: 12.51 worst: 20.17

PLL's:
H: 3.48
Ua: 2.63
Ub: 2.45
Z: 3.92
Aa: 2.76
Ab: 2.65
E: 3.89
F: 3.38
Ga: 3.71
Gb: 3.58
Gc: 3.40
Gd: 3.20
Ja: 2.90
Jb: 2.79
Na: 5.60 (i just learned a new alg for this one, i don't have it in my muscle-memory yet)
Nb: 4.74 (this one is pretty new too)
Ra: 3.40
Rb: 3.68
T: 2.71
V: 3.48
Y: 3.42

I don't really know how i could time indivudual OLL's though.
Because of the new N's and pretty regular lockups i've got some more 30+ solves now and then.

When you take a look at these numbers, what advice would you give me? (other then practice more)
Do you notice anthing that's out of proportions?
By the way, i use a lot of different cubes but switched from c4u's to FII's and Haiyans about three weeks ago.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Joker]

You're cross and F2L is good for your average. But, that means you have a 10-13 second last layer, which could really be improved.
You're PLL execution time is a little slow. Work on all you're PLLS til they are all sub 3 seconds (except N perms. Get them around sub 3.5-4 seconds)
Also, it seems your LL recognition is slow. Try to get faster at recognizing your OLLs and PLLs faster. Youtube how to recognize G perms if you don't know how to (theWestonian has a good vid on this)
And also youtube how to recognize other PLLs fater (badmephisto has a vid on this)
Try to get your OLLs sub 2 ish. To practice, just work on the fingertricks over and over til you get fast.
Also, Erik Akkerdijk (frk17 on youtube) has a video on how he does his PLLs. I found that really useful, I got better G Perms from that vid. He also shows the fingertricks.
Hope this helps.

 

[Rudinie]

Try to get your OLLs sub 2 ish.

wow, this seems a daunting task. My Oll is nowhere near that fast. I've recently started to learn a bunch of olls and i now know about 21 of 57.
This ofcourse does not help my recognition and excecution of oll but even before that i don't think i could have solved even the easiest case within 2 seconds. I really have to look into this.

Also, Erik Akkerdijk (frk17 on youtube) has a video on how he does his PLLs. I found that really useful, I got better G Perms from that vid.

I know this one, it's where i got my Ja from. I'm not too keen on his "slides" though. Haven't checked the G's yet, will do that next.
And if i look at my times, i think my R's and my Z could use better algs as well.

Thanks for your answer, much appreciated!

 

[Joker]

No problem. And for OLLs, since you are still learning them, I recommend executing them 30 times in a row while you are learning them. Yep, thirty. That's what I do when I learn a new alg. And thats 30 times at your top speed (as long as you get all the moves right)
If you do this, then you will be able to do the OLL's without even thinking about the moves, so it will be faster (sub 2) The day after you learn an alg, practice the alg that you learnt from the previous day 10 times to make sure you remember it, and to make sure its decently fast. And yeah, sub 2 for all the OLLs will take practice. Be patient, itll get faster as time progresses and you get used to the fingertricks

 

[FatBoyXPC]

E,T, H, Z, Ua, Ub, Aa, Ab, and Jb should all be sub2 (or even sub1.5 if you want to be as fast as the sub15 solvers. A lot of people can do most of those in the low 1 second range). If this helps any, I just sub1.5 did T, H, Ua/Ub, Aa/Ab, and Jb. Basically I can't do Z that fast yet but it's still like 1.6 or 1.7 or something. You should look at the other PLL thread because Rowan (Escher is his username here) does almost all of his PLL's in sub2, it's crazy. I highly recommend getting his N perms (they are nice). The Na perm is just RUR'U Jb (the inverted T perm Jb alg) then U'RU'R', it's nice and quick. I can almost get sub2 on that one (2.1-2.5 range for me). His Nb perm is also nice but since it's not a conjugate of any alg that I know so it's harder to put into muscle memory. Just so you know I can't always sub2 E, I lock up a lot on it (I do Rowe's E perm using ring finger on left hand to push/pull D layer). I'm on the verge of being sub20 if that helps you guage where you should be at. You definitely want your LL to be under 10 seconds, probably 8 seconds or better given how all PLLs should be done in sub4 and all OLLs should be sub2, that leaves 2 seconds for recognition (but I sometimes screw up on my recog).

When you time yourself doing your PLLs, how are you starting? Do you have the cube on the desk/mat without touching it, or are you holding it in your hands?

Hope that helped.

 

[Rudinie]

You should look at the other PLL thread because Rowan (Escher is his username here) does almost all of his PLL's in sub2, it's crazy.

His Nb is the one i learned recently but i'm not fast on it yet. I lock up very often on it:
R' U R U' R' F' U' F R U R' F R' F' R U' R
*
That first F' is where the trouble starts for me.
I do this with my right thumb, but i very often don't get the front lined up nicely enough to easily do the U' with my left index afterwards. So there it locks up. This happens very often.

When you time yourself doing your PLLs, how are you starting? Do you have the cube on the desk/mat without touching it, or are you holding it in your hands?

i use cubetimer.com and i hold the cube with my right hand, and push the spacebar with my left hand. When i do just a RU for example and time that, i get around .50 seconds average. So how people are able to do a whole PLL alg in sub 1 is a complete mystery to me. I read in the other PLL thread that Esher quoted his fastest times, not his averages. That makes quite a lot of a difference allready, at least for me it would.
I also noticed right now that cubetimer stops the timer after releasing the spacebar, not after touching it. This i notice costs me a fraction of a second as well because i never actually noticed this, i just pushed.

Anyway, the tips on practicing one specific alg over and over again to get it optimised is great, i never did this before, i just solved cubes.
Thank you for taking the time to reply.

 

[Litz]

I don't agree. You don't need to have really fast PLLs right now. Just look at the times: your average cross + F2L takes 17 seconds. Even if your OLLs and PLLs were sub2, you wouldn't even sub20. Practice whole solves to lower cross+F2L time. Shoot for sub10 average and don't worry about the algorithms. By the time you get there, you should be sub15 and then you can worry about LL if it's still slow.

 

[Rudinie]

The Na perm is just RUR'U Jb (the inverted T perm Jb alg) then U'RU'R', it's nice and quick.

Finally got to it and WOW, this one is indeed much more finger-friendly for me, i'm sure i will be able to do this faster then the one i used before in no time.
Thanks again, and thanks Rowan!

 

[ArcticxWolf]

I don't agree. You don't need to have really fast PLLs right now. Just look at the times: your average cross + F2L takes 17 seconds. Even if your OLLs and PLLs were sub2, you wouldn't even sub20. Practice whole solves to lower cross+F2L time. Shoot for sub10 average and don't worry about the algorithms. By the time you get there, you should be sub15 and then you can worry about LL if it's still slow.

If your cross + F2l is sub 10, and your LL is 10 seconds, something's wrong. That's obviously not the fastest way to make his times better. Getting sub 10 cross + F2L requires much more effort for much smaller gain.

 

[Litz]

I don't agree. You don't need to have really fast PLLs right now. Just look at the times: your average cross + F2L takes 17 seconds. Even if your OLLs and PLLs were sub2, you wouldn't even sub20. Practice whole solves to lower cross+F2L time. Shoot for sub10 average and don't worry about the algorithms. By the time you get there, you should be sub15 and then you can worry about LL if it's still slow.

If your cross + F2l is sub 10, and your LL is 10 seconds, something's wrong. That's obviously not the fastest way to make his times better. Getting sub 10 cross + F2L requires much more effort for much smaller gain.

I said whole solves. He's not sub10 cross+F2L yet. He's sub30. A 10 seconds LL for a 30 seconds solve isn't something to worry about in my opinion. I believe that was actually my LL time when I was sub30. By training cross+F2L, you're solving LL too, so you're practicing both. By the time he reaches that, I guarantee you his LL time won't be 10 seconds.

 

[Joker]

I don't agree. You don't need to have really fast PLLs right now. Just look at the times: your average cross + F2L takes 17 seconds. Even if your OLLs and PLLs were sub2, you wouldn't even sub20. Practice whole solves to lower cross+F2L time. Shoot for sub10 average and don't worry about the algorithms. By the time you get there, you should be sub15 and then you can worry about LL if it's still slow.

If your cross + F2l is sub 10, and your LL is 10 seconds, something's wrong. That's obviously not the fastest way to make his times better. Getting sub 10 cross + F2L requires much more effort for much smaller gain.

I said whole solves. He's not sub10 cross+F2L yet. He's sub30. A 10 seconds LL for a 30 seconds solve isn't something to worry about in my opinion. I believe that was actually my LL time when I was sub30. By training cross+F2L, you're solving LL too, so you're practicing both. By the time he reaches that, I guarantee you his LL time won't be 10 seconds.

If you're training F2L, then you are training the FIRST TWO LAYERS, not the LL. Solving the LL while training F2L is a waste of time. Just rescramble the cube after F2L is solved.

I say he should drop atleast 3 seconds of his LL, 1 for OLL, 1 for PLL, and 1 for recognition and pauses. Then he'll be at 23-26 range, which is about an 11% improvement.

As I said, for his average his F2L is fine, but his LL is to slow. He has to be balanced with his F2L and LL.

 

[ArcticxWolf]

I said whole solves. He's not sub10 cross+F2L yet. He's sub30. A 10 seconds LL for a 30 seconds solve isn't something to worry about in my opinion. I believe that was actually my LL time when I was sub30. By training cross+F2L, you're solving LL too, so you're practicing both. By the time he reaches that, I guarantee you his LL time won't be 10 seconds.

Actually, 10 second last layer in a 30 second solve IS something to worry about.

 

[Joker]

I said whole solves. He's not sub10 cross+F2L yet. He's sub30. A 10 seconds LL for a 30 seconds solve isn't something to worry about in my opinion. I believe that was actually my LL time when I was sub30. By training cross+F2L, you're solving LL too, so you're practicing both. By the time he reaches that, I guarantee you his LL time won't be 10 seconds.

Actually, 10 second last layer in a 30 second solve IS something to worry about.

+1

 

[ElectricDoodie]

I said whole solves. He's not sub10 cross+F2L yet. He's sub30. A 10 seconds LL for a 30 seconds solve isn't something to worry about in my opinion. I believe that was actually my LL time when I was sub30. By training cross+F2L, you're solving LL too, so you're practicing both. By the time he reaches that, I guarantee you his LL time won't be 10 seconds.

Actually, 10 second last layer in a 30 second solve IS something to worry about.

+1

Uh-oh... I've got something to worry about, then...
Thanks for that. Now I know what else to work on.

 

[Rudinie]

Actually, 10 second last layer in a 30 second solve IS something to worry about.

Ok, now i'm a little worried! I understand how i could practice PLL's but how about OLL (which i think needs a lot of attention)?
Do i practice those seperatelly as well? That would only help excecution, not recognition.

I've got my Na times down to 4.50ish using the RUR'U J-perm U'RU'R' alg.
My averages go down slowly as well, i got a 25.xx avg of 12 earlier today and a couple of sub30 streaks of about 20 to 30 solves as well.

 

[FatBoyXPC]

A 10 second last layer for a 30 second solve is arguably something to worry about. Sure he could be sub30 if he worked on his LL but everybody is making the point that by the time he gets good look ahead, his LL times will have dropped.

Rudinie: When doing the Na perm, the J perm finished with a U', and you do another U' to do the inverse setup moves, so instead of doing two separate U's do a single U2 flick. Do you even use U2 flicks yet?

You guys think he has something to worry about? I should be sub20. I have usually consistent 13s Cross + F2L and I'm still usually hitting 22-23. It definitely sucks. Most of my issue is trying to be too fast though, especially when I look at the clock to see 13 seconds knowing I should be able to do LL in 7 seconds so I hurry to try to get it done. I'm trying to get in the habit of not looking anymore (I look so i know how long my F2L takes so I know how bad it was that time.

 

[ArcticxWolf]

A 10 second last layer for a 30 second solve is arguably something to worry about. Sure he could be sub30 if he worked on his LL but everybody is making the point that by the time he gets good look ahead, his LL times will have dropped.

You guys think he has something to worry about? I should be sub20. I have usually consistent 13s Cross + F2L and I'm still usually hitting 22-23. It definitely sucks. Most of my issue is trying to be too fast though, especially when I look at the clock to see 13 seconds knowing I should be able to do LL in 7 seconds so I hurry to try to get it done. I'm trying to get in the habit of not looking anymore (I look so i know how long my F2L takes so I know how bad it was that time.

I don't really understand what you're saying here. Are you agreeing with me or disagreeing? >_>

Regardless, you proved my point. Everybody is saying how when he gets good lookahead, his LL times will have dropped enough. However, you also say that although you finish cross + F2l @ 13, you still hit 22-23, which disproves that your LL times will drop low enough just by working on lookahead. With a 13 second F2L, it should be quite easy to get sub20, but the problem is that you just have to drill those algorithms into your head. It's not about lookahead. It's all about how fast you can recognize and execute the algorithm, which requires practice.

Honestly, I reached sub 20 a couple months ago, and the thing that really pushed me over was practicing my PLLs untill they were all sub2, and some of them sub1.5. After doing this, I learned full OLL, which reduced my times by 1-2s+, and although people argue that faz got sub10 with 2 look OLL, that is not even close to being a valid reason for not learning 1L OLL, because I don't turn nearly as fast, so an extra algorithm will add 1 or 2 seconds to my time. For faz, he turns so fast that an extra F R U R' U' F' would probably be about 0.5 seconds, and I don't think that many people who are 20-22 seconds have such a high TPS.

tl;dr - F2L and lookahead isn't everything. Even though many people emphasize it a lot, you shouldn't neglect your LL, because it can be pretty significant too.

 

[~Adam~]

I don't really know how i could time indivudual OLL's though.

I edited Bad's PLL trainer by switching the OLL images for PLLs.

Your PLLs are quicker than mine but I'm averaging 22.
My F2L is around 13 second average so I guess I need a lot of work on my LL.

 

[~Adam~]

Honestly, I reached sub 20 a couple months ago, and the thing that really pushed me over was practicing my PLLs untill they were all sub2, and some of them sub1.5.

I just don't see me being able to do this.
I only average sub 3 on 3 of my PLLs

 

[Joker]

A 10 second last layer for a 30 second solve is arguably something to worry about. Sure he could be sub30 if he worked on his LL but everybody is making the point that by the time he gets good look ahead, his LL times will have dropped.

You guys think he has something to worry about? I should be sub20. I have usually consistent 13s Cross + F2L and I'm still usually hitting 22-23. It definitely sucks. Most of my issue is trying to be too fast though, especially when I look at the clock to see 13 seconds knowing I should be able to do LL in 7 seconds so I hurry to try to get it done. I'm trying to get in the habit of not looking anymore (I look so i know how long my F2L takes so I know how bad it was that time.

I don't really understand what you're saying here. Are you agreeing with me or disagreeing? >_>

Regardless, you proved my point. Everybody is saying how when he gets good lookahead, his LL times will have dropped enough. However, you also say that although you finish cross + F2l @ 13, you still hit 22-23, which disproves that your LL times will drop low enough just by working on lookahead. With a 13 second F2L, it should be quite easy to get sub20, but the problem is that you just have to drill those algorithms into your head. It's not about lookahead. It's all about how fast you can recognize and execute the algorithm, which requires practice.

Honestly, I reached sub 20 a couple months ago, and the thing that really pushed me over was practicing my PLLs untill they were all sub2, and some of them sub1.5. After doing this, I learned full OLL, which reduced my times by 1-2s+, and although people argue that faz got sub10 with 2 look OLL, that is not even close to being a valid reason for not learning 1L OLL, because I don't turn nearly as fast, so an extra algorithm will add 1 or 2 seconds to my time. For faz, he turns so fast that an extra F R U R' U' F' would probably be about 0.5 seconds, and I don't think that many people who are 20-22 seconds have such a high TPS.

tl;dr - F2L and lookahead isn't everything. Even though many people emphasize it a lot, you shouldn't neglect your LL, because it can be pretty significant too.

Yep. A LL thats 5 seconds slower than it could be results in a solve that could have been 5 sec faster. Seriously.
If he averaged say 35-40 seconds and his LL was 10-12 seconds, sure, work on F2L first. But hes averaging a lot lower than that.
To get better at recognition, use the inverse of the OLL/PLL so you see the case that you are trying to learn. Stare at it and hardwire it into your head from different angles. I was averaging about 23 seconds while I had a F2L that was about your time (16 ish).
So that means a 7 second LL.
Try to get your LL down to 8 seconds BEFORE you work too much more on F2L. And get good algs. That helps alot also.