Your Cubing Experience

[HMark]

Hi, this is Mark who is not actually a speedcuber rather a cuber who is struggling to touch even 30 sec (3x3). I have made this thread for my help as well as for other beginners who keep on scraping experts, posting on their walls, messaging like how much time they took to become a colour neutral, how much time they took for learning oll's, to become a pro at f2l,etc and still getting no reply. It annoys you expert speedcubers as well as the beginners who are eager to know the answer.

From your diary

It's a request to you all. Pl, post your personal experiences that how you all got introduced to cubing, how much time did you took to learn f2l advanced and few things which you firmly concerned while practicing f2l,oll and pll.

 

[soldii3runit]

Hi,

I'm just here to comment as I'm probably no better at speedcubing than you. According to this thread-

http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?6085-How-to-Get-Faster-using-the-Fridrich-Method

And many people I talk to; it can take over a half a year just to reach sub 20. My best time is 36.25 and I only been practicing for about a month.


But here goes my experience:
What got me into cubing?-
Watched a friend do one over and over for 2hours. So I said, why not try it? So I went to walmart and got one. After 3 1/2 hours I Solved it for the first time since I idealistic/photographic memory where I remember many of the things the dude did in front of me.

After I solved the cube the first time, I wanted to learn how to do it everytime, faster and without chopping up. So I went on youtube and learned the beginners method. I used the beginners method for an entire week and learned fingertricks. By now, my average was about 2 minutes and 20 secs with a PB of 1M 32S. I thought I was the best at this time and I was totally wrong after watching Felik....

After feeling bad about being the worst speedcuber in the world, I went back on youtube and searched "HOW TO GET BETTER AT SPEEDCUBING". Clicked the first video and it was a F2L vid mad by a kid named Ethany. After watching it about 50 times, I spent two days trying to figure out how to pair up colors intuitively as he gave no case examples or algs. I finally figured it out and started practicing it. After I got comfortable with it, I looked up more vids and found a vid talking about the FISH setup (SUNE). I took some notes and later found out that the F2L and this FISH were connected in an advanced method. I later learn after a week of practicing that method was called Fridrich and that I was learning OLL.

After watching Fridrich method vids, I copied 7 OLL algs, and 21 PLL algs and started learning them. I learned all the OLLs in one night & 2 PLLS (Y Perm and T- perm since they came up often and learned 90% of the rest in one week. After all this, It was March 24th (started 11th) I finally timed myself and I Was doing 1m 10 sec solves over and over. 2 Days past and I Was doing 55s. Another 2 days pasted and my record of 48 secs was reached. Getting excited, I practiced slowly like badmephisto recommended and I practiced some rotationless F2L and 3 days later I reached my current PB single and average of 10.

Now, I'm finally learning some F2L algs for special cases, learned all PLLs and 22 OLLs.

 

[jeff081692]

Introduced to cubing: Had a cube thought it was impossible. Figured I would see if the internet could solve it for me. Used a beginner method for way too long because I didn't understand how to do F2L or knew what OLL or PLL were. Eventually found a youtube playlist of each PLL then I started to learn the fridrich method. Practiced non stop during summer vacation before high school about (about 7+ hours a day for 2 or 3 months) during that time I went from 3:00+ to just under a minute. Wasn't until I was about 40 seconds that I got my first DIY then I as time went on I achieved my goal of sub 20. Mind you I didn't know hardly any OLL during that time because I was lazy and just did solves.

But I had achieved sub 20 just by doing lots of solves then I stopped cubing so I could improve at chess. This year I picked back up cubing again. When I first got back I averages about 22-23 seconds so I had to get sub 20 again. I decided to become color neutral since I thought that would benefit me in the long run and since my times were crap compared to what I was in the past It was easy to transition into being color neutral because that meant my times would be worse for a period anyway.

So lately I have been beating my personal bests and I am trying to get sub 15.

As for how my progress kind of looked I made a thread in 2007 about asking how to get faster
my breakdown was
Cross=8 sec
Insert edge and corner pairs=20 sec
OLL=6 sec
PLL=9 sec
total=43 sec
Between 43 seconds and sub 20 there is no special trick or anything that improved my times. It was just practice and time. It is hard to believe I use to take so long for each step but if I made a thread back then like this then obviously I felt like other people were doing something I wasn't but that is just not the case. I feel the same way now wondering how people are sub 10 but just doing solves everyday can go a long way.

At this point I focus on certain things at a time to get better instead of just doing solves. Whenever I look at a top speed cubers' video I see things that they do that I would never end up doing if I just did nothing but solves. So a big part of my practice is studying people better than me and learning better finger tricks from them. I'm learning a lot of Breandan's OLL and PLL algs and I started a document of F2L algs from every angle that I will use and by looking at reconstructions of other cubers I improve upon my list as needed. But to be honest nothing extra that I do will automatically make me a better cuber until I put the practice in to be able to recognize every new case I learn like the back of my hand.

 

[dr01d3k4]

Introduced: My friend brought his cube into school but he couldn't yet solve it, but it got me interested in my dad's master magic. I then bought a really bad £1 cube off eBay and started learning to solve it. I could only do the first 2 layers in beginner's method for a long time as I didn't understand the last layer (I didn't think to look on youtube at this point). I then taught one of my friends the first 2 layers, and he looked up the last layer on youtube and taught me it (the pogobat's method). I managed to get down to about 2:20~ on this bad cube when it broke after trying to pop an edge out. For the next few months I was unable to cube and didn't think about it much, but then a friend brought his Meffert's Pillow cube to school and because at the time I didn't know of any other brands like Dayan, I got my parent's to buy me the twin set for Christmas.

Since then I have learnt 7 OLLs, 11-13 PLLs (not sure how many) and intuitive F2L and I average sub-40s, and I've also learnt the Roux method which I'm interested in making my main method, and I average around a minute with this and PB of about 43s. For learning the OLLs/PLLs, I tried to learn 2 every 2 days but I've been distracted recently by attempting Roux, practicing big cubes and learning how to solve cuboids (I have no idea how to fix parity on a 3x3x4). I have also collected another 20 cubes/puzzles in 4 months too (includes 2x2, 4x4, 5x5, 6x6, Megaminx, Pyraminx, Clock, Square-1 (can't solve) and some cuboids and some shape mods (I love the axel/axis cube - it's so confusingly awesome )) - my friends expect me to come to school with a new cube each week!

 

[god of rubic 2]

Last year in July there was a cube "craze" going on at my school, there were loads of kids with rubik's cubes and solving them, I watched them and thought maybe I should learn how to solve one as well... so the next morning I brought a cheap mini cube to school, one of my friends knew how to solve one and I was really fascinated about it, he tried to teach me how to do it but I couldn't understand it, so that afternoon I searched up and watched pogobats tutorial on YouTube, with that I practised and on the third day I solved my first cube by myself, then my next aim was to do it without looking at any algorithms and have them memorised, so the next day I memorised everything and could solve it without help.

I kept practising with the minicube until my friend bought me a cheap normal sized rubik's cube, by this time the cube "thing" was over and I was probably one who still was cubing. Well, my other friend wanted me to teach him, so I did while I kept practising the Beginner's method, I got down to about 1min 20sec. One day I searched up ways to get faster on the rubik's cube, and I saw this site about F2L, I clicked on the page and about 200 algorithms pop up in my face, and I'm like WTF, no way am I going to learn that, so I kept at it going with the Beginner method. (not improving my times) Then one day I decide to learn the F2L and once I got the basic concept of it I slowly practised it and learnt it intuitively, my time got down to about 1:10 seconds, and then I learnt OLL and PLL, I learnt the 7 algs for it and learnt the PLL algs slowly (about 12ish), I then practised and practised, the times were going down from 58.4 seconds to 52 to 45 to 42 to 37,34,32 and slowly creeping down while learning F2L cases of stuck pieces until I got to 27 seconds. I was averaging about 40 seconds at the start of the year and now I'm averaging about < 24 seconds, at the time I got my PB of 22.98, I went to the Melbourne Summer 2012 with my friend (the one who I taught) and watched the competitors go at it, I didn't enter because I thought I was too slow and didn't want to humiliate myself but regretted it once I got there.

Then I saw Felix!!!! Then I was in like crapping myself mode, like its Felix, the fastest cuber in the world, Felix!!, well I got a photo with him (hence my avatar) and watched him break the world records and stuff.
Well after that I learnt the rest of the PLL, more easy OLL, like T and Dot cases and slowly pushed my average to under 24 seconds.
Currently my my PB is 17.34 Non lucky, and 18.15 Lucky ( I know that sounds weird, but my nonlucky one is faster) and trying to become colour neutral with jskyler91’s guide... so far I’ve done the white and yellow and now up to blue. (I hope its worth it)

 

[balloon6610]

Introduced to cubing: I interested in cubing when i saw a 5.66 WR video from feliks . I thought "He can solve it that fast why can't i do that ?" So i went to the shop bought cube and started learning how to solve it on youtube and finally solve it and it appear to be my new hobby so i keep practicing

After about 1 week of cubing my average is 1 minute and interested to get faster , So i opened youtube and watched badmephisto "How to become a Speedcuber" Videos and learned some simple OLL algorithms that day and learned a simple F2L, That's my first time i started practiced for speedcubing

After 3 and half month of cubing (current day) My average is 20 seconds with intuitive F2L (with some algorithms) Full OLL and Full PLL. The cube that i use is Dayan Guhong (White) and start to practice 2x2 And i will go to my first competition soon

 

[Robocopter87]

I was at my uncles house and was annoyed that the cube was smarter than me. For Christmas I received a cube from a friend and spent the weekend learning it from Dan Brown. Got fast over the next few years. But never used anything besides beginner. I was at the 30 second mark record and 40 second average (still using rubiks brand) when I decided to learn CFOP. It had originally seemed almost unreachable due to the sheer amount of OLL algs. (Which was the reason I avoided it in the first place.

However, learning about 2 look made me change my mind. I learned RiDO's hunting method and just took out all the story to it because thats just not how I learn but it was quick and easy to learn and accomplish. Then I did the seven OLL algs and then all 21 PLL.

Later on I purchased a Zhanchi and my times went down even more.

Now I own a Lubix Fusion (AMAZING!) and average sub 25. I probably would be faster at this point but I'm kinda dropping out of cubing slowly due to a realization.

I've taught multiple others how to cube and even though they aren't very fast they are pretty avid about it. Every single person solves it again and again after they are taught. But I taught someone else. They borrowed a backup cube of mine and they practiced it and eventually I taught them how to fully solve. But they day I taught them how to fully solve they took the cube and they solved it by themselves. Then he turned to me, handed me back my cube and said, "There you go." And I asked him, " Thats... it? You don't wanna do it again?" "Nope. I just wanted to solve it." "Huh..."

And it came to me that all this time my original goal was to solve it. And I accomplished that goal 2 years ago. It made me feel that this is just pointless. And even though its fun to do during school to keep me occupied. It really made me feel the need to slowly quit.

So yeah, thats my origin. To conquer the cube.

 

[aznanimedude]

i actually was introduced to it by my cousin, he had one, but i never really paid attention to the fact he had one, i was also like 8 and didn't really care at the time

then i guess about 2 years ago, my littlest brother got a rubik's brand cube, and i figured i might as well try to learn how to do it, by now the wonders of youtube were worldwide and so i dan brown'd my way to beginner's method. My times around then were like 1 minute-ish.

Then i taught my brother and he started to get faster at LBL than me. Pride as the eldest deemed i must now go below him, and i started learning CFOP. at the time i only knew the basic insertion for F2l and so i would just do one algorithm over and over until i found the case i was familiar with, and as for LL, i did a 4LL. Times at this point went down to around 40ish seconds.

From there, i decided why not take it down to a 3LL, and so i embarked on that journey to learn the rest of my PLLs, which took maybe 2 months because i took my time with it, did like 1 algorithm a day, but since there were mirrors it was more actually like 2 a day, and spent alot of time just making sure i had it in memory without having to stop and think too much about which case i saw. At this point i think was when i actually started considering myself somewhat of a speedcuber.

I struggled a bit for maybe a month trying to break the 30 second barrier, but i took the time to slow down and improve my lookaheads alot and that brought me to sub 30. Later i also changed my F, T, N, and R perms because i realized they sucked and had too many cube rotations. As things stood at this point (which is proably 4 ish months ago), i was in the process of also finishing my OLL to reduce my LL to a completely 2LLL, it was like "hybrid" since i knew a fair bit of them but still not all of em.

Then maybe around a month ago, i decided i would start learning ZZ method, and i've spent all that time till now to actually a point where i now can consider it my "main" method now. My times technically are still not quite to the level they are at CFOP (17ish PB vs 23ish), and my averages are still higher overall with ZZ, i'm starting to be much more consistently sub 30 in my solves with it (occasional slip ups but they're getting rarer).

Currently i'm like 1/2way through my COLLs (H,U,and T COLLS, some of L), after, i "might" pick up phasing + ZZLL, but for now i'm happy where i am cubing

 

[Cheese11]

Well, I bought a Rubik's Cube in grade 7 and whenever I went to a resturant, I would play with it while I waited for my food. One time, A waitress told me she could solve it in under 2 minutes, and so she did it. When I got home that night, I spent 7 hours trying to solve the cube, and eventually got it. That's how I started. My journy here, will be unknown becuase I'm too lazy to type that much.

 

[blackzabbathfan]

I'm not sure if I'm gonna do this right but:

I think I got fascinated in cubing by watching the "Pursuit of Happiness" in fourth grade and thought "I can do that." I got a cube for Christmas and couldn't solve it. My older brother picked it up and looked up Dan Brown's tutorial, he didn't get it. That summer, I watched the tutorial again and soon could do the first side along with my brother. Eventually he learned to solve it and then gave me tips. I started timing myself and got sub-1:30. I started buying speed cubes and couldn't get under 1 minute so matter how hard I tried.

In November 2010, 7th grade me looked up "How to Solve the Rubik's Cube in Under a Minute" and was taught F2L and 4 Look LL. Eventually It got me sub-1. And after about 6 or seven monthes I got sub-30. I started learning all the PLLs and just could not get sub-20.

With practice and help from a few of my friends, I was finally sub-20 after 14 months. I still use CFOP, with half the OLLs down and all of the PLLs. I currently average 16-19 at 16 months. I'm going to try finishing OLL, sub-15 by Nationals hopefully.

So I hope I did that right but what ever.