Why did YOU start cubing?

[TDM]

I got 2x2 as a present. I thought it was easy

Everyone thinks it's easy, but it isn't!
I started after seeing someone at school do it. I then also learned how to do it, but I was the only one to try improving - except for someone else who started recently; I'm trying to teach them F2L and 2-look OLL.

 

[Tarhilion]

When I was in the fifth grade, I had a teacher who taught me how to solve a 3x3x3. I was so amazed that I've just been cubing since.

 

[szalejot]

I just thought, that solving 3x3 must be not that hard. Received first rubiks from wife as Christmas present and started solving.

 

[maxcube]

I saw Dan Brown's tutorial and thought it was freaking amazing, so I went to Walmart and bought a cube.

 

[sub20cuber]

I started because at that time I wanted to learn new things

 

[cubesonfire]

I fell into a well. A magician told me that if I didn't learn to solve a cube in 2 days, I would be dead.so I leant it.

 

[LukeMata11]

I saw Dan Brown's tutorial and thought it was freaking amazing, so I went to Walmart and bought a cube.

ehhh, Badmephisto is better

 

[larosh12]

How and when did you start cubing?

The title is my question . In my case I started cubing in the beginning of 2013 when I found a rubik cube outside my house in trash( probably because the owner couldn't solve it ) . I worked on it and got tired but couldn't solve it even after a week ,then watched badmephistos video and solved my first rubik in sizzling one hour by watching the video .Then in a week I learned the 7 Beginners method algos and I was averaging about 1:40 in the start . Left cubing for some months in between due to university entrance test and examinations. Then restarted from July and in 19.5 - 21 secs average now with 13.76 best.

 

[Royiky]

I saw videos of feliks solving.
Then I asked my grandparents if they had a rubiks cube.
Then I learned how to solve it.

 

[Jaysammey777]

there has been a couple of threads asking this, just bump those.

 

[ketchuphater999]

How did you get into speedcubing?

No one cares how dramatic or random it is, just post it.

I will go first.

I was sitting in my bedroom a few years ago, and I was overly bored. I picked up my iPad and opened YouTube, and then I saw a random rubik's cube lying on my bed. I was just like "What the heck," and I searched "How to solve a rubik's cube". I found pogobat's video on the beginners method... I think you can figure out what happened after that. Then, my dad got me a stickerless DaYan GuHong for my birthday (I was absolutely mind-blown by the speed.. at the time I thought that nothing could be better than my vaseline-lubed rubik's brand :fp). After about a month, I had about a 1:10 average. I joined speedsolving forums, and joined the community. I then discovered CFOP. I worked pretty hard on learning F2L, and managed to cut my average time down to about 50 seconds. Then I learned 2-look OLL and PLL, and got my times down to about 40-45. Then I went to my first competition at Stanford University. (bla bla bla)

Thats basically it.

 

[IRNjuggle28]

I heard about this kid who went to my high school who held some cubing records. He's still remembered at my school, even though he graduated several years ago. I heard about him years before I got interested in cubing, but sometime or other, I went and found a video of him solving. I thought it looked cool, so I went and found my crappy Rubik's brand and messed around with it for a while. (And it's BAD. Way worse than most Rubik's brands. I average 16 seconds now, and I still can't sub 40 on that cube) Even with such an awful cube, I knew I'd found my next big hobby. Something to replace juggling in my life, which I'd pretty much stopped doing. The first couple weeks, I tried to learn to solve it without a tutorial, and I did succeed at solving the first two layers. I eventually learned CFOP, and got good cubes, and found out that the events I enjoyed most were actually big cubes. 5x5-7x7. Interestingly, those are the same events that the guy who used to go to my school specializes at. Any guesses as to who this "random guy" is?

Spoiler

It's Kevin Hays. Yep, I go to the same school as him. Kevin's sister Stephanie and I were the only two tuba players in my 9th grade band class, long before I had any idea who Kevin was, and before I had any interest in cubing.

 

[kcl]

I think I've told this before, but basically it boils down to this.

Long long ago, in early january 2013 I got a rubik's cube for christmas because I love puzzles. I tried to solve it and couldn't, so I got frustrated, took it apart, and kind of ignored it. I learned how to solve it on a long drive to the airport in mid january averaging around 5 minutes. I wasn't interested at all in speed. Fast forward a couple weeks to when Chris broke the 2x2 world record at Dixon winter. Being that he lives pretty close to me, he showed up in my local newspaper. I took out the cube again, and decided to try and get as fast as him someday. A year and 7 months later, here I am.

 

[SolveThatCube]

I have always loved puzzles and have had a Rubik's cube in my house since I was little. When I was 9 or so I got really frustrated with it so I took it apart, once I got the first piece out it exploded and I thought I had broken it... So on the way to footy practice we stopped at Toys R us and bought a new one. When we got home I mixed it up and tried to solve it but couldn't until I found the '7 Step Solution Guide' hidden in the box. After half an hour, I had solved the Rubik's cube for the first time.

I practiced for a month and got my times down to 2 mins, but I stopped not long after that and didn't pick it up again until February 2013, after I had moved to Thailand and had a friend over to my house. He saw it, messed it up and said: "Solve it." It took me a bit over 10 mins to solve it. And that's when I began speedcubing.

 

[rebucato314]

When and why I started cubing

Started: 2013 August

Reason: Same as Feliks. Not as fast though.

 

[rebucato314]

Spoiler

It's Kevin Hays. Yep, I go to the same school as him. Kevin's sister Stephanie and I were the only two tuba players in my 9th grade band class, long before I had any idea who Kevin was, and before I had any interest in cubing.

I'm so jealous!

 

[JasonDL13]

When I was 8, I was waiting at the ferry (I don't really know if other countries have that, it's like a public boat that takes you a cars a short set distance) and my parents had bought me one. And my dad said he could do one, but he forgot the last layer. So he taught me F2L and I used instructions to learn to solve the rest. However (with whatever method I use using) I never memorized the last algorithm to permute the edges. So I always carried around the instructions. But I did get a edge-permutation skip about 3-4 times. So I did solve it. Then I got bored and stopped.

So 5 years later. I went into grade 7. And there was someone knew into my school. Lets call him Jacob. So I got into a class with Jacob, and I didn't know he could do Rubik's Cubes. So we went on another Ferry for a field trip. And he took a lot of his puzzles on the Ferry for stuff to do. I still knew F2L so I said I can do the first two layers of those, and I did. Then finally I ordered a cube online thinking I would never go to a competition it was stickerless.

anyway I finally got it, at this point I knew how to get the yellow cross using beginners method. And I got the cube out of the box, I scrambled it, solved f2l, did the yellow cross. And the entire cube solved itself, I'm not even kidding. I got a half oll skip and pll skip. No U turns needed. So at that point I knew I need to do this. So I learned the beginners fridrich method. I still remember when my PB was 1:24. My PB got to 48 seconds, which sound like it sucks, but it's pretty good considering the method I used. Then I learned 4LLL, pb went to 31 seconds. Then I learned Fridrich F2L and I got 26 seconds as a PB. But I didn't really practice that much. So then a competition was announced in my area. So I bought 2 stickered cubes. And I did about avg every day for about 4/5 days. Then I did a avg 25-50 for about 5 more. Then about avg 10 for the rest. I managed to get my pb to about 21 seconds. Then at the competition, when I wasn't competing I had to hand scramble. So I got an easy cross, and got 16 +2 seconds. Then later I got 18 seconds with a computer scramble at home. And I just got 16 seconds with a really easy scramble. I now average about 25-30 seconds. And about 5-7 seconds on 2x2. I'm now about neck-and-neck to Jacob now

I've also learned blindfolded on the 2x2 and 3x3. Which Jacob can't

 

[priazz]

In february 2012 this dumb schoolmate brought the cube to school. He could solve it with the layer by layer method. I told myself: you can't let this kid be better than you. So i started practising. In one week i could solve it with keyhole f2l, sune done a few times for OLL and Jperm and Uperm for PLL.
After an 8 months pause I relearned the method and started learning CFOP algs. Today i have a PB of 10.76 single, 13.35 avg5 and I'm avging high 15's and cubing has become a big part of my life.

 

[Jon The Cuber]

one of my best friends brought a cube to school one day and challenged me to a race. he hadn't learned anything yet and gave me a few days to get one. he won the race and helped me learn the rest. I actually solved it for the first time on my own (no help, no alg. sheets) in the middle of a lecture in French. I could barely contain myself. luckily my teacher was cool and totally understood. from then on, I was obsessed with getting faster.

 

[Rubiksfreak]

A saw a friend solve one at school once and wanted to learn how to do it.