What are the Hardest Plateaus to Overcome?

[jskyler91]

Hey guys, I haven't been on the forum much lately because I have been really busy with work and an internship, but I thought I would post this because I have been curious about this topic and I would like to compile some information about it. Just so you guys know I did do a search and I found a few related polls/topics, but they weren't as focused as mine nor were they very modern.

Some quick background info on me, I am a student at UC Berkeley and I am teaching a beginners and advanced class at my school on "How to Speedsolve the Rubik's Cube". I have been cubing for 7 months now and I average mid 16's on a normal day and 15's on a good day. I am interested in compiling some information about the most difficult time barriers to overcome and how to overcome them. I hope to present this information to my class to give them a good idea of how to overcome their individual struggles. FYI students in my class average from 11 seconds to 3 minutes plus.

From my research on this forum, the most difficult time barriers to overcome are
Sub 1 min
Sub 30 sec
Sub 20 sec
Sub 15 sec
Sub 12 sec

Anything above 1 minute just requires a better method and some practice, all the times between those listed generally just require a little more practice as well in addition to learning some new algs (sup 20).

I am interested in three areas in regards to these times, 1 how did you overcome these time barriers and 2 how long did it take you to overcome them and 3 How often you practiced at those times. If you guys could respond with a quick answer to each of these that would be great. If you have yet to overcome a barrier just say how long you have been stuck.
For instance, My response to this would be:

Sub 1 min:
1. simply practicing and learning badmephisto's beginner's method, 2. 1.5 weeks, 3. 30 mins per day
Sub 30 Sec:
1. lots of practice in addition to learning full look 2. 2 weeks from the time i hit sub 40 till I was consistently sub 30, 3. 1 hour per day
Sub 20 Sec:
1. Better lookahead, going slower, relearning almost all of my pll's and oll's, learning not to watch the timer, practice, 2. 1.5 months from the time I hit sub 30 til I hit sub 20 consistently, 3. 1.5-2 hours a day (summer time)
Sub 15 Sec:
1. Have yet to achieve this consistently, I have gotten a few averages of 12 sub 15, but not very often. I think I need to speed up a bit and relearn a few g's, 2. 1 month since I made it to sub 20, 3. 1.5 hours per day (more on weekends, less on weekdays)
Sub 12 Sec:
N/A

Thank you in advance.

 

[Yuxuibbs]

just got my first sub 20 average of 12 today.... didn't learn all pll's or more than 10 oll's yet.... i always pause between my cross and f2l....

 

[xabu1]

for me, sub 1 min was a hard thing to get, I was trying to figure out F2L and I didn't want to learn any new algs for it, I was only using FRUR'U'F' and sune for OLL and a and u perms, my F2L really picked up with some advice on logic from better cubers and my times started to drop very quickly, I also started learning full PLL and 2LOLL, I got past 30 quite easily.

I started to plateau at ~25 seconds, my improvement slowed greatly, I got to 22 seconds and got stuck there for a few months, I broke that, just to get down to 20 seconds and get some lucky solves and get my competition average of 20.05.

I was experimenting with roux before, but I got down to it and switched my main method. I was just around 30 at the start. I used 2LCmLL with fridrich algs I knew from before. It took some getting used to, with block building from F2L, I started doing LSE backwards, solving DF and DB first and then using U,Z or H perm. I stayed around 30 for a short time, I practiced alot more than I did with fridrich, I figured out how to do LSE properly by logic, which took some time and thinking, I learned all the CmLL algs, but my recognition was terrible. I would get a sub 20 time on a good Cmll recognition, or a 30+ on a bad one. My average balanced around 25. I started just practicing CmLL by doing Cll on 2x2. My times balanced out, now I average 23 consistently. I am still working on CmLL recognition, but now it is much better than before, I don't get those 30+ solve anymore because of bad CmLL

 

[jskyler91]

I would really appreciate it if more people responded, this information would be extremely helpful to my class. Thanks

 

[Phlippieskezer]

Don't have a lot of time, so quick TL;DR response (I might edit tomorrow if the rest of the post would prefer more detail):

There's already been a thread on this. Most people voted sub-20.
For me, it was sub-15. Every barrier for me came effortlessly without even making a concious effort. For sub-15 I actually drilled myself some more. Sub-12 will probably be the same, though (I average just sup-12 to low 13s now).

 

[5BLD]

Gosh, phlippieskezer, you're improving quickly!

For me it was sub-20. And funnily enough this seems like the easiest time as my times have been slipping down nicely at a constant rate. I average sub-13 ish. Sometimes averages are just a little over 13, like 13.04.
I can literally feel sub-12 coming.

 

[WastedMeerkat]

Sub 1 min
I was using beginners' method (from pogobat) and was at about 1min 15secs for a while, started to find shortcuts and how I could reverse algorithms to get the opposite effect, etc., eventually cut this all the way down to 45secs average. Took me about 2 or 3 months to get to this point.

Sub 30 sec
Now this one was hard. I went from beginners' method to Fridrich F2L at first. This slowed me down to about 55secs average for a while, kept working at it until I got it down to about 40secs. Then I learned 2 look OLL and 2 look PLL, which got me down to about 35-ish. Once I learned 1 look PLL, I was so close on the edge of sub-30. Seriously, I got like 30-31 second averages. SO frustrating. Then I went on a longggg period where I didn't time myself and I just solved for the fun of it. I'm talking about 6 months or so. I didn't solve nearly as much as when I was serious about it, and I lost my colored GuHong, so I had to default back to my Alpha V and F II. So, with slower cubes I didn't know that I was actually getting better and better, and it didn't help that I wasn't timing myself. I started to get back into cubing a little more and then I finally broke down and bought an Ultimate Lubix ZhanChi about a week ago. Best investment in a cube ever. I love that thing. Anyway, first time I took was a new PB of like 22.08 seconds or something. Kept solving and I got my PB all the way down to 20.28 seconds. I took an average of 50 and it's at 26.63 seconds with a standard deviation of 3.09 seconds. Again, I have no idea what I did, just a lot of practice. At this point, I can recognize most F2L, OLL (still 2-look), and PLL cases and execute the algorithms without thinking about it. I solve cross on the bottom and with a lot of lower case turns and finger tricks. Badmephisto's videos are incredibly helpful. All in all, this probably took me about 2 or 3 years. I could have drilled myself a lot better, trust me. But now it's very easy for me to recognize cases for my algorithms.

Sub 20 sec
Still working on this... My cross is very fast, recognition between F2L and OLL is fast, and the same goes for between OLL and PLL. I think my main hurdle right now is look-ahead for F2L. I really have been lax about this, but I'm trying a few different exercises that Badmephisto suggested in this video, as well as the exercise in this video. I'll update if I have any success overcoming this barrier.

 

[cubeslayer]

In order to become sub 1 min, practice is the key. I used a 5 look Oll and a 2look pll to achieve this along with the beginner's f2l ( insert corner first, then the edge). This took me several months of practice ( due note, this was during my junior year of HS, so advanced classes and extra currics for college apps took up most of my time)

Sub 30 took me a good half year of practice ( intermediate/intuitive f2l---lancetheblueknight)+1-2 pll and 2-3 look oll+cross still on top. In regards to the " colossal" amount of algs, learn mirrors and triggers ( badmephisto olls and vids very beneficial at this stage)

Sub 20, this past summer of '11 ( full oll and pll) + lookaheadcross on bottom. I felt that in this stage, less practice is required. The knowledge has been built. All that needs to be done is improve lookahead and turning speed. Plenty of slow solves are recommended. Also know how to insert f2l cases from various different angles. My Guidelines to follow, roughly- cross-2s f2l-9s oll: 2s pll:2.5s and 4s of buffer wasted on doing things inefficiently

sub 15: not consistently sub 15 myself. Reduce the pauses to an absolute minimum and turn fast as well as look ahead.

sub 12: N/A