solves

AL60 Solve Response – 35 seconds (Arghhhh!)

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Yesterday, AL60Ri7HMi57 posted a quick video with new lighting and a clean 22-second solve. In the comments, she wrote, “Do the scramble and post your time in the comments below!” So, I figured I’d give it a shot. I had my camcorder charging on my desk, so I haphazardly aimed it, flipped it on, scrambled, and solved. 35.65 seconds. Not great. But, in all honesty, right about where I am. At least on video. I’m about 5-7 seconds faster off video, without the inexplicable nervousness of being on-cam.

The Video and Initial Observations

My first reaction was to ignore the solve and move on. Rarely one to miss an opportunity for self-examination, though, I decided to learn from it. So, for better or worse, here’s the video.

(music: String Cheese Incident, ¡Bam! (March 23, 2002); cube: black Zhanchi w/ Cube Specialists fitted bright stickers and modded Cubesmith grey stickers for U face)

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39-Second Aof5 entry, analysis (cyoubx/mitchell lane competition)

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Competing? Really?

golf-swing-analysisYou don’t skip the company’s annual golf tournament because you’re a double-bogey golfer. You go, drink a few beers, have a good time, and learn a thing or two from the guys who live on the course. At least that’s what I do.

And, metaphorically, that’s what I did when I decided to submit an entry into an online competition administered by cyoubx and Mitchell Lane. They provided scrambles for several events (2×2, 3×3, 4×4, pyraminx) and invited people to “compete” by submitting video responses showing their solves. It would be based on the honor system (no way to prevent people from filming themselves multiple times and submitting only their best), and there would be no prizes. The express purpose was “to ‘meet’ other cubers,” “to encourage personal improvement,” and to strengten “a sense of community” among cubers.

I knew there was zero chance I could win this thing, averaging around 42 seconds (with my better solves in the mid-thirties). But I dug the concept and the chance to try something different as part of the community. Minimally, like folks who film their golf swing for analysis, I figured that I could learn something about my technique.

Video Submission, Results

Here is the 3×3 video I submitted, with a best solve of 37 seconds and an average of five of 39 seconds I realize that the edits between each solve give the appearance of multiple attempts. And there were. But not the cheating of multiple solve attempts; worse, it was multiple scramble attempts!?! Half-way through each of the scrambles, I caught myself reversing (or at least worrying that I had reversed) the inverse/non-inverses for Ds, Ls, and Bs. So I had to keep starting over to make sure I got each scramble right. Trust me, if I were going to cheat, I would have submitted better solves without glaring mistakes!?!

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36 seconds (on-video PB)

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I just got my fastest recorded (on video) 3×3 solve of 36 seconds. I’ll cut to the chase, and put the long-winded commentary below the media content for once. Here’s the video:

(music: “The War” from the Duplicity soundtrack; cube: properly Lubixed white 57mm Dayan Zhanchi with Cube Depot light matte sticker set)

At 36.10, this was not my fastest 3×3 solve; Continue reading →

28 seconds

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My first sub-30 solve: 28.28 seconds!  Pretty Lights’ “Finally Moving” played in the background.

Clearly, this is well outside of my ~40 second average. Even with the benefit of the 28-second solve, the session average was over 40 seconds. Everything just came together easily: I visualized the cross perfectly and performed it in six moves; my four F2L insertions went off without a hitch and with minimal hunting; and I knew the OLL (#23).

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I got lucky with a PLL skip, which probably saved me 4 seconds. But, even if you throw in a 2-look PLL, I should have been below my previous personal best of 34 seconds (with best-recorded of 39 seconds).

I guess my recent F2L work is paying off!

3×3 Walk-Through Solves (via CrazyBadCuber)

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Over the past week, I’ve spent a little more time than usual on youtube. There’s a lot of good stuff out there, but even more junk. Of all the videos/channels I’ve visited, I’ve been most impressed with CrazyBadCuber‘s. In particular, I found this 3×3 walk-through video to be enormously helpful (especially for F2L look-ahead/tracking):

As someone averaging around 45 seconds with a personal best of 34, this narrated play-by-play helped me identify all sorts of inefficiencies in my current technique — and encouraged me to slow down and practice better techniques.

P.S. Notice the new domain? No more “.wordpress.” in there. For a mere $18/year, I figured it was time to (pretend to) do this for real….