About a month ago, TazzVidz approached me about doing a dual commentary on his channel. I was a bit skeptical at first. But then I decided that it might be refreshing to do a humble, earnest dual commentary.
I’ve written here ad nauseam that I think I’m a good cuber, but a mediocre speedsolver — dubbing this site a blog for the mediocre. It was in that vein that I did the interview/commentary. He layered the commentary over a video of *him* doing a 4×4 Ao5. I think it came out great:
Here’s a dirty little (not-so-)secret fact: I’m a mediocre cuber. Indeed, mediocrity is, in a sense, the raison d’être of this blog.
me·di·o·cre [mee-dee-oh-ker] of only ordinary or moderate quality; neither good nor bad; barely adequate
synonyms: undistinguished, commonplace, pedestrian, everyday; run-of-the-mill
antonyms: extraordinary, superior, uncommon, incomparable
More accurately, I’d say that I’m a pretty good cuber, but a very mediocre speedsolver. My technique is decent. I know all PLLs and can execute them efficiently. I understand intuitive F2L very well, and have learned a lot of tricks for more complicated cases. And I’ve got about 60% of the OLLs under my belt. But when it comes to putting them all together into full solves, I’m just not that great. My cross stinks. My look-ahead is non-existent. And, under the pressure of the clock, I tend to confuse F2L cases and forget OLL cases. That’s why I average just under 30 seconds.
And that’s why I very rarely record full solves and, even more rarely, averages. Well, after my surgery and with this damn cast still on my arm (¡au voir mañana!), I thought I could record an average of 5 (Ao5) with a built-in excuse. And so I did. Here’s the video with a 39 second Ao5 (and with BIG apologies for so much of it being out of frame!):
z D’ R2′ D (R2 U R’) D'(R U’) (R U R’) D (R U’) z’
It’s not weird to have a favorite algorithm, right? I mean, look at unboxing or review videos, and each cuber seems to have a go-to move. For a while now, mine’s been the V Perm — the PLL that (a) swaps opposite corners and (b) swaps the adjacent edges next to them. I hated the V Perm, as I first learned it: R’ U R’ d’ R’ F’ R2 U’ R’ U R’ F R F. That algorithm was clunky, without a good flow.
z D’ R2′ D (R2 U R’) D’ (R U’) (R U R’) D (R U’) z’
Since it’s one of the more complicated executions in my repertoire, I thought it would lend itself to a multi-angle video. I did something similar, when I was still learning the algorithm, and I wanted to update it:
About a month ago, TazzVidz approached me about doing a dual commentary on his channel. I was a bit skeptical at first. But then I decided that it might be refreshing to do a humble, earnest dual commentary.
adventures in cubing 
