speed cubing journeys

• My Speed Cubing Journey

It began when I was I my 8th standard.

I was introduced to a 3x3 by my brother who has learnt to solve it from his friend. He has written half a dozen of algorithms and asked me to mug them up. I then started learning those algs by simultaneously solving the cube . In due course of time I could solve the cube without looking at the algorithms. Initially my solving time ranged between 3min 30secs to 4min 30secs. After few days I took the cube to school to show my new talent to class mates.

Can You Guess what happened next?

After my solve in front of peers one of my classmate grabbed my cube; scrambled it; And solved it around about a minute. All my excitement of being a cuber went down spontaneously. Then I stopped cubing as soon as i acknowledged  that solving a cube is not a talent as 5% of the World population can solve a 3x3.

Now Fast Forward 4 Years

In Jan 2019 I was watching a movie. In that movie a person solved a 4x4 as if it was a Jig-Saw puzzle. That 4x4 captured my interest and immediately I went to an online website to buy a 4x4. There I found too many brands selling 4x4 with its specifications. Till then I used to think Rubiks is the only brand which makes cubes. Without wasting time I searched on Youtube to know the reason behind so many brands making a same 3x3 ,4x4 etc. It was when I heard the term speedcubing for the first time. After a lot of research I realised that:

"Cubing is not a Talent but Speedcubing is indeed a Talent."

So I Bought my first 3x3 speed cube on Feb 6 through an online site.

Here begins my Journey of Speed Cubing.....

I LEARNT CFOP Method

Sub-60

  1.Learned how to do finger tricks

  2.Used a timer, I used normal clock during this time to see my progression.

Sub-50

1.learnt F2L the toughest part of CFOP.
2.used Cs Timer on mobile.
3.learnt 2-Look_OLL
4.learnt  2 LOOK PLL

Sub-40

• used tutorials , such as indicoder videos on YouTube.
• my times  temporarily got worse, but after a few weeks of practicing, they rapidly became better.
• Practiced F2L -- practiced a lot. There is no way around F2L, and I had to master it to get very fast.

Sub-30:Here i  couldn't improve my times for a long time

• I Started lubricating my cube to increase the turning speed.
• At this point, I started  getting some lucky solves sometimes which were ranging from 25 to 27 seconds.( This was the sign indicating improvement.)
• Here I worked upon look ahead.

Sub-20(The toughest stage of speedcubing )

• As mentioned earlier i started getting some lucky sovles of 20 seconds to 23 seconds.(It was less Than my goal but I was able to see improvement and consistency in my solves)
• Then I learned all 21  PLL algorithms.
• Then my average started ranging from 19-21 secs.
• I got a lucky solve of 16.xy secs I was so hyped that I started feeling like a speed cuber.
• I then improved my F2L efficiency and worked upon advanced cross solutions.
• Currently my Personal Best(PB) is 13.06 secs.
• I am getting an average of 17-18 secs.
• Got plenty of 14,15 ,16 second solves.......
• I have still not learned full OLL and will start it soon after this post.

AFTER Sub 60 seconds i used CS Timer .Currently using Nano timer.
Reaching Sub 20 was not easy. It took thousands of solves of which around 3000 are recorded by timer.AND note that I use timer only once or twice a week.Total unrecorded solves may be 8000+..

Journey to sub 15:
Will upload soon after further progress...

pittalaabhishek999@gmail.com