It just takes an on-camera 34-second Ao5 (this one as a submission for Paradox Cubing’s 10k Subscriber Contest) to remind me that well, uh, I kinda suck at this cubing thing. I know that 34 seconds is impressive to 99.9% of the general population. But three years into this thing, I should be at speedsolving levels, and 34-seconds isn’t really there.
Nevertheless, since I’ve never been bashful about being mediocre and it not really bothering me, I figure that I might as well post the average. But then to show that, gee, maybe I am a wee bit self-conscious about the time, I’ll follow up with an excuse video.
Sucky, right? And in multiple different ways:
- Bad crosses.
- Zero lookahead.
- Over-emphasis on front-right F2L inserts.
- Poor alg execution/lockiness.
(1) and (2) are just truisms at this point. I haven’t spent as much time on improving my crosses as I should. And my brain is too hardened to manage look-ahead (so I tell myself). These deficiencies exist on- and off-camera. By contrast, (3) is an issue I have only on-camera; off camera, I regularly make back and left inserts. I have no good explanation for the difference, but hypothesize that front-right is a sort of mental/subconscious “default” to which I defer under the additional stress of filming solves.
I do have a good explanation for (4), however. My solve position is very different on-camera (12‑18″ outstretched) compared to off-camera (just a few inches):
So, there you have it. A slow average. A fair assessment of my skills. And a decent excuse video.
adventures in cubing 