What would you consider decent, fast, world class, etc. on 3x3?

cmhardw said:
Wow, that is unreal. So the percentage of people who spend 60-120 hours learning modern methods, practicing with a good speedcube, and who are not sub-20 is quite small, then?

Why do you think there are people nowadays who have cubed for years and are not yet consistently sub-20? If it's so easy, then why do such people exist? What could they be doing that is SO wrong that they haven't achieved this seemingly beginner level of skill yet?
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my girlfriend has just hit sub20 after around 4 years of cubing, and i can tell you why. she was never really practicing, analyzing her solves, focusing on her weak aspects, she kept learning new methods and algorithms, making her start over many times on different aspects of the cube and she spent way less than an hour daily on cubing. since i got to know her half a year ago, her practice time hasnt increased much, but i told her what to focus on and she started practicing seriously, and she got sub20 pretty quickly.

i think most people who complain about not improving either A) overestimate their practice time. an hour a day is NOT alot, and people dont seem to get that, or B) they just mindlessly solve cubes over and over again without really practicing (check out Escher's "How to practice"-thread, old, but gold.).
 
Petro Leum said:
my girlfriend has just hit sub20 after around 4 years of cubing, and i can tell you why. she was never really practicing, analyzing her solves, focusing on her weak aspects, she kept learning new methods and algorithms, making her start over many times on different aspects of the cube and she spent way less than an hour daily on cubing. since i got to know her half a year ago, her practice time hasnt increased much, but i told her what to focus on and she started practicing seriously, and she got sub20 pretty quickly.

i think most people who complain about not improving either A) overestimate their practice time. an hour a day is NOT alot, and people dont seem to get that, or B) they just mindlessly solve cubes over and over again without really practicing (check out Escher's "How to practice"-thread, old, but gold.).
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PS: i never said the percentage of cubers who spend 60-120 hours and arent yet sub20 is very low, it is probably way higher than it should be, considering how EASY it is to achieve in that timeframe. Also note that this only takes into account 3x3, if you spend 2 hours on cubing daily IN GENERAL, skills from other events may transition partly to 3x3, but it's not as much as if you only practice 3x3.
 
Petro Leum said:
i think most people who complain about not improving either A) overestimate their practice time. an hour a day is NOT alot, and people dont seem to get that, or B) they just mindlessly solve cubes over and over again without really practicing (check out Escher's "How to practice"-thread, old, but gold.).
Click to expand...

I think what you're saying makes sense, but I do think your timeframe is overly ambitious for most. IF someone had a coach or knew how to practice well from the very beginning, then I think your timeframe may be reasonable.

Petro Leum said:
PS: i never said the percentage of cubers who spend 60-120 hours and arent yet sub20 is very low, it is probably way higher than it should be, considering how EASY it is to achieve in that timeframe. Also note that this only takes into account 3x3, if you spend 2 hours on cubing daily IN GENERAL, skills from other events may transition partly to 3x3, but it's not as much as if you only practice 3x3.
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Makes sense, with the same caveat as my above comment.
 
cmhardw said:
Haha! When you say that I hear:

"This is about Rubik's cube... *mad face* It's soooper serious..."

:p

Lighten up. Slower than you - yes, by a lot. Slow compared to the general cubing population or especially compared to non-cubers - no.
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Maybe it came out too harsh. I think the definition of fast really depends on who you're comparing it to. I don't think that anyone sup15 is incredibly slow, but I just wouldn't call them fast.
 
I've been cubing for over a year. I do timed practice on average 1.5 hours a day. I spend another 2-3 hours doing casual solves while working, watching TV, etc. I know F2L, full OLL and full PLL. I also know CLL and several alternate OLL and PLL algorithms for big cubes and OH. In other words, I have put considerable effort into improving my skills.

My average is around 27 seconds with a PB single of 18.
 
EvilGnome6 said:
I've been cubing for over a year. I do timed practice on average 1.5 hours a day. I spend another 2-3 hours doing casual solves while working, watching TV, etc. I know F2L, full OLL and full PLL. I also know CLL and several alternate OLL and PLL algorithms for big cubes and OH. In other words, I have put considerable effort into improving my skills.

My average is around 27 seconds with a PB single of 18.
Click to expand...

In my opinion your experience is not atypical.
 
EvilGnome6 said:
I've been cubing for over a year. I do timed practice on average 1.5 hours a day. I spend another 2-3 hours doing casual solves while working, watching TV, etc. I know F2L, full OLL and full PLL. I also know CLL and several alternate OLL and PLL algorithms for big cubes and OH. In other words, I have put considerable effort into improving my skills.

My average is around 27 seconds with a PB single of 18.
Click to expand...


cmhardw said:
In my opinion your experience is not atypical.
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IMO I would say that he improved a little slower than most people, but definitely not by much.
 
You're right, I might be extrapolating, can't guarantee I'm not!

Going back to the main discussion however, it doesn't really matter much, as even if you have to put in a year on average instead of 1-2 months, by the time spent you would still not be considered decent. Compare to other sports where with 1-3 years of professional dedicated practice you're still a bloody noob :p
 
EvilGnome6 said:
I've been cubing for over a year. I do timed practice on average 1.5 hours a day. I spend another 2-3 hours doing casual solves while working, watching TV, etc. I know F2L, full OLL and full PLL. I also know CLL and several alternate OLL and PLL algorithms for big cubes and OH. In other words, I have put considerable effort into improving my skills.

My average is around 27 seconds with a PB single of 18.
Click to expand...

My experience was more or less the same. After around a year, I was stuck at about 25 seconds, having put in considerable effort to improve. However, I'd also spent a lot of my cubing time practising big cubes, OH, pyraminx and skewb. I'd also spent time exploring several method. So while I had been putting in 1-2 hours a day of dedicated practice and countless casual solves in between, it was spread between multiple puzzles, which I think is why my progress has been slower compared to cubers that spend all of their time on 3x3.

I've been cubing almost 18 months now, and I still consider myself fairly new to it. I've been putting a lot more effort into 3x3 over the past 4 months and have managed to get my global average down to just over 22 seconds. I consider this as typical, even slightly slow for the time and effort I've put in. I certainly wouldn't call it decent. I'm fairly certain that in a year or two, I'll be able to get to get consistent 15-18 second averages, and I think I'd consider that decent.


I do also think age and experience plays a factor in what I consider fast. So if a 15 year old who's been cubing 5 years is averaging 15 seconds, that's not that fast, but a 40 year old who's been cubing for 1 year who averages 18 seconds, I would consider fast.
 
I'd be curious to hear any experiences of older cubers (as in out of school, working full time) who have managed a sub-20 average in just a few months.
 
AlphaSheep said:
I do also think age and experience plays a factor in what I consider fast. So if a 15 year old who's been cubing 5 years is averaging 15 seconds, that's not that fast, but a 40 year old who's been cubing for 1 year who averages 18 seconds, I would consider fast.
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Yep. I'm 42 now so I don't think my progress is atypical for my age, especially since it's divided between other cubes. I just wanted to post a counterpoint to the ignorant statement that anybody can get sub 20 with 2 months of practice.
 
I've found this discussion to be very interesting and would like to add my perspective. I consider myself an intermediate level speedcuber. I use F2L with a 2-look OLL and PLL method. My current average fluctuates between 30-32s. I have chosen not to invest myself to fully learn OLL and PLL and chase 20s solves. Currently, I don't have the time to put 1 hour a day into cubing. For my answer, I put 60/35/20/15/10. I almost put 30 seconds for kind of fast, but I think I am kind of fast. I don't think I am fast. But I do not think that means I am slower than decent.

I think the parameters for the question have been left open, causing the large discrepancies among answers. I think a lot of answers have been from the perspective of advanced speedcubing only. But personally I have the perspective that the question would include speedcubing in general. More specifically, once a cuber learns how to solve a cube consistently and begins to pursue speed, regular solving of the cube under 1 minute is decent. It's a good accomplishment and should be considered decent, imo. To advance a level, a cuber needs to learn more advanced methods (such as F2L, OLL, PLL, etc.) that will drop them under 35 seconds. That's kind of fast. To be fast, one needs to practice consistently and correctly (making sure they are improving their week areas, etc.). I think as such, under 20 seconds is fast, and is a good benchmark in my mind for being a truly advanced speedcuber. Just think about how sub 20s solves were thought of only 15 years ago! Beyond fast, of course, there are really fast and world class. I am not fully informed to know how many people can actually solve sub 10, but is it so large a number that world class needs to be a lower time?

Just my thoughts. Perhaps I have a similar perspective as Chris, since our answers are similar (and my name is Chris, too)?

Anywho, just for fun I asked 5 of my coworkers at work this question, none of which are able to solve a Rubik's Cube (although one said she solved it once as a kid, saying it took her "forever") and not very familiar with speedcubing. Their answers were:
-just-solving-it/2hrs/2min/30s/15s
-1hr/30min/60s/40s/20s
-75s/45s/30s/22s/15s
-5min/3min/60s/50s/30s
-40min/35min/30min/15min/20s
 
bgcatfan said:
Anywho, just for fun I asked 5 of my coworkers at work this question, none of which are able to solve a Rubik's Cube (although one said she solved it once as a kid, saying it took her "forever") and not very familiar with speedcubing. Their answers were:
-just-solving-it/2hrs/2min/30s/15s
-1hr/30min/60s/40s/20s
-75s/45s/30s/22s/15s
-5min/3min/60s/50s/30s
-40min/35min/30min/15min/20s
Click to expand...

I think that this is very interesting. I find some of these responses weird. The first one says 2 hours is sort of fast, which I can kind of see but if 2 minutes is fast then that's a pretty big gap. The second one is alright, but again note the large gap between sort of fast and fast. The third one is easily the best by almost* any cuber's standards. The fourth one is also pretty reasonable. The fifth one has a huge gap between really fast and world class, which seems backwards to me because I think that the largest gap should be between decent and sort of fast.
*Included only so that mDiPalma doesn't make some weird hypothetical situation that would falsify my claim.
 
bgcatfan said:
I think the parameters for the question have been left open, causing the large discrepancies among answers. I think a lot of answers have been from the perspective of advanced speedcubing only. But personally I have the perspective that the question would include speedcubing in general. More specifically, once a cuber learns how to solve a cube consistently and begins to pursue speed, regular solving of the cube under 1 minute is decent. It's a good accomplishment and should be considered decent, imo. To advance a level, a cuber needs to learn more advanced methods (such as F2L, OLL, PLL, etc.) that will drop them under 35 seconds. That's kind of fast. To be fast, one needs to practice consistently and correctly (making sure they are improving their week areas, etc.). I think as such, under 20 seconds is fast, and is a good benchmark in my mind for being a truly advanced speedcuber. Just think about how sub 20s solves were thought of only 15 years ago! Beyond fast, of course, there are really fast and world class. I am not fully informed to know how many people can actually solve sub 10, but is it so large a number that world class needs to be a lower time?

Just my thoughts. Perhaps I have a similar perspective as Chris, since our answers are similar (and my name is Chris, too)?
Click to expand...

You write your thoughts very clearly, and you have clarified this discussion for me. I did want to include everyone from just beyond total beginner skill level to world class in my rankings, as you guessed.

bgcatfan said:
Anywho, just for fun I asked 5 of my coworkers at work this question, none of which are able to solve a Rubik's Cube (although one said she solved it once as a kid, saying it took her "forever") and not very familiar with speedcubing. Their answers were:
-just-solving-it/2hrs/2min/30s/15s
-1hr/30min/60s/40s/20s
-75s/45s/30s/22s/15s
-5min/3min/60s/50s/30s
-40min/35min/30min/15min/20s
Click to expand...

That is neat! I notice that their non-cuber perspective overestimates world class by a large percentage difference. I have noticed that in my experience too. Non-cubers that I've met often think the world record is around 10 seconds and are amazed to learn that it is closer to half that.
 
I don't know if I count as "old" solver but I was older than most when I started I think. I was 22 years when I started and got to sub 20 in few months. Maybe 3-4 months IIRC
 
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