# Your Cubing Story



## cashis (Jul 10, 2015)

Interestingly enough, I searched for this and there wasn't any threads just for personal stories, or at least any I could find with a few searches. 
So, I made one. This thread will be solely for your story. Not just how you got into cubing, but achievements, sub-x's, or anything else that's happened that you think is significant. 
I'll go first. 
It all started when I got suspended from school two years ago (May 2013). My parents, being good parents, grounded me from everything electronic during the three days I was kicked out of school, so I just grabbed a Rubik's cube from the store. Mine came with instructions, and within a day I could do it without the instructions. I remember vividly the first time I solved it, and I swear I freaked out. After I got ungrounded, a few YouTube searches led me to the world record at the time (Mats'), and my first thought was that Ill never be able to do it that quickly. But, I still had a burning urge to do it, and fast. That sumenr, I learned F2L from CBC's (sigh...) video, which in hindsight, gave me a lot of bad habits that took a while to fix, but thats okay. For about 8 months, I decided F2L was enough, and I just solved it for fun every now and then. And then I found out about OLL and PLL. At first, the huge number of 21 and 57 algorithms was terrifying, but I decided I definitely didnt want to be someone who stuck with two-look OLL for a long time, so I decided to learn the cross OLLs last, so I wouldnt be tempted. Fun fact: I didnt learn the V perm until about a month ago. 
Anyway, skip ahead a lot of practice, and my first sub- 10 solve came about 5 months ago. I freaked out! Ive since gotten a lot more, and as of this day I have 2 sub -8 solves. Ive recently slowed down my progression a lot, but thats okay. 
Sorry for the text wall. I'm interested in reading all of your stories! 
Sorry if there's already a thread for this, but I couldn't find any. 
- $


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## rj (Jul 10, 2015)

I started 3 years ago on an impulse buy. Since then, it's just been same old....


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## JustinTimeCuber (Jul 10, 2015)

April 2012: I picked up a cube, and remembered that I had a book on how to solve it. I had trouble figuring out what it meant, because I didn't know where to start. My dad helped me learn the notation and showed me some of what it meant.
May 2012: I knew how to do the F2L completely without help from the book. I could finish the cube if I used the contained LL algorithms.
June 2012: I worked on learning algs. By then I had started really caring and working on it a lot more. I would do my first solve soon, given that I had more time after just leaving 3rd grade.
June 24, 2012: I was on vacation at the Lake of the Ozarks (We go there annually in June with our extended family). That night, I had done many solves without the book. The last solve before I went to bed, I got to CP (it was a weird LL system that made it hard to transition to 4LLL, EOEPCOCP), which was the last thing I needed to learn. I was about to open the book. Then, I decided not to and tried the algorithm from memory. I got it right. (It was an Ab perm, x R2 D2 R U R' D2 R U' R.) I don't count this as my first solve because I had looked at the algorithm from the book before, and then solved the case. I don't remember exactly what happened that night, but I know it was a very significant achievement, whatever it was.
June 25, 2012: The next morning, I got up and picked up a cube. I scrambled it, and then solved it. My first full solve. I did it again. Later, I timed myself for the first time with some people watching. It was around 7:15. My times quickly dropped, and I got down to 3:00 by the end of the vacation.
Late June, 2012: I found an old Rubik's 4x4 that was in my closet, and with the help of the book I solved it. I didn't get around to memorizing the parity algorithms for a while.
July 7, 2012: For my half birthday someone gave me a crappy Rubik's 2x2. It was targeted towards very young children and had silly stickers, which I forgot exactly what they were.
A few days later: My cubesmith order arrived, and I restickered the 2x2 with normal stickers.
I forgot exactly when: I decided to sit down and learn the 4x4 parity algorithms.
August, 2012: I got a QJ tiled 4x4 (which was really bad but much better than my Rubik's brand), a QJ megaminx, a QJ pyraminx, both tiled, and a stickered QJ 5x5. I don't remember the exact dates of these.
October, 2012: I got a LanLan 3x3, which became my main. I also ended up with a LanLan 2x2 at some point.
November, 2012: I switched to a Dayan Zhanchi.
December 2012: I got many cubes for Christmas, including a SS 4x4, SS 5x5, and a stickerless Zhanchi.
January, 2013: I got more cubes for my birthday. I also got something that would be the reason that I'm not sub-10 right now: a Minecraft account.
February, 2013: I got a 3x3 PB of 17 seconds. I also signed up for a cubing competition, UIUC Spring 2013. I built a Rubik's Cube in Minecraft, like just about every cuber who plays Minecraft.
March 30, 2013: I went to my first competition. It was awesome. I actually did pretty well for me at the time. I made the second round of 3x3, my best average was sub-27, and I got a 5.80 2x2 single. If you care, check my WCA profile.
April, 2013: Minecraft stole my life. Skip ahead 13 months.
May, 2014: My family went to Costa Rica. I brought a Zhanchi on the plane to pass time (my average shot back up to 45) and I lost it. Why do people lose Zhanchis so much?
Later, we were at a place with WiFi, and I was curious about cubing again because of losing the Zhanchi. I checked the WCA competition page. My mom said that she would take me to Indiana 2014 if I actually practiced (anything to get me away from MC, at the time lol)
August 23, 2014: I went to Indiana for a competition. I had beaten my PB, which became around 14 seconds, and I had gotten back down to my old average and then passed it up. I competed in 3x3, 2x2, 4x4, Pyraminx, and 6x6, all of which I beat my OPB on (well I had never done pyraminx before). Two of my Pyraminx times were the same down to the millisecond. They were the first two solves, and were 16.439s. My 3x3 average was 20.68. I was REALLY back into cubing this time, and I refused to let the MC curse fall over me again. I was one week into 6th grade, and was obviously very excited about my upcoming comp, so everyone knew about it.
November 1, 2014: I went to a competition on the day after Halloween. I completely forgot about that until I noticed the free candy they were giving out at where we ate dinner on the way there. My dad took me to this one. I knew a lot more about speedcubing then, but there weren't that many well-known cubers there. I was, of course, sub-20, given over 2 months to improve from 20.68, and I even got a sub-17 average (16.98) in the second round. I was kinda proud of beating the delegate and the organizer in the same round with that average. I was 11th, so I didn't quite make the finals.
yada yada
I got some cubes for Christmas and my birthday.
I got an AoLong v2, switched to it.
Beat my PB with an 11.99(9). The best sub-12 single ever.
I had that PB for a few months, until...
March 28, 2015: I went to... definitely not a competition except yeah. (You can tell I'm getting a little bored but I'm almost done.) Many of the same people were there, but then there was also Chris Olson (thanks for not giving me a +2 on an OH solve that was my competition best and wouldn't have been) Kevin Hays (quit showing off. How do you turn that thing so fast?) and Kennan LeJune (why are you so awesome at cubing?) However on the way there, I beat my PB: 11.71. 5 minutes later, I beat it again: 11.57. Then, at the competition, in the second round of 3x3, I got a 15.03 average. If you actually checked my profile, you would have figured out that at the time my 11.90 was my 3rd best solve overall ever. If I hadn't been cubing in the car, it would have been my PB. I have a video on my stupid channel of that ao5.
March 30, 2015: I beat my PB again. And again. 10.43.
June 12, 2015: I got my first sub-10 single. I also got 6 other ones on other days. 9.56. That beat my PB of 10.12. I used COLL and got a PLL skip.
July 9, 2015: I average sub-14, and my PB is 8.51. I am a speedcuber so therefore I win. Bye that was stupidly long and I'm hungry.

update:

Summer 2015: I continue improving, until school starts. At that point, my best ao5 was 12.74, and although I considered myself sub-13; in hindsight, I probably still averaged around 13.2. I started getting frustrated by the lack of competitions to go to. Finally...
November 7, 2015: I go to KCubing 2015. I made the finals of 3x3 and 2x2, 3x3 for the first time ever. I was 8th place in 3x3 and 6th place in 2x2. It was my first competition where I was "fast". I barely drop my 11.90 single, getting it down to 11.86. However, I get my average from 15.03 to 12.10, almost a 3 second drop.
December 2015: I am planning on going to Music City Winter 2016, and consequently, I learn Square 1.
December 24, 2015: As a Christmas present, I am set up to fly to OKC for OKCubing 2016 on 1/16. I was really not expecting this at all.
January 1, 2016: My second solve of the year was a sub-10- 9.91. My first solve, I'm pretty sure, was a 13.35+.
January 2, 2016: Music City Winter was fun. I finally got a sub-10 single officially, but only because of a PLL skip. I got my average down to 11.20 somehow. About 2x2, please don't ask.
January 15, 2016: I miss school to go on a plane. 
January 15, 2016 @ ~2:00PM: I get a sub 8 solve. Not my PB, but it was notable because I had it on video.
January 16, 2016: OKCubing. It was in a kinda small room with no wifi, but it was still fun. Notably, a) I got 2 sub-10 singles b) I used COLL officially at least twice, and it resulted in a sub 10 single c) It was the first competition that I podiumed anything d) It was the first competition that I podiumed at least one round of 3x3 e) I beat my 2x2 OPB single after 14 months and f) more things lel


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## cashis (Jul 10, 2015)

wish I could go 2 comps :/:/
good read though


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## leeo (Jul 10, 2015)

1982 I picked up Rubik's Cube and purchased _Simple Solution to Rubik's Cube_ by James G. Nourse. I memorized that method, but preferred to solve the LL on the U face, so I inverted all of the algorithms there presented with a z2. This gave all the algorithms a left-hand bias -- I still prefer a left hand bias to this day.

1983 I picked up a Rubik's Revenge 4x4x4 cube, but it broke before I completed the first solve. I had a pyraminx and Alexander's star, but have since lost interest and both those puzzles. I still have a Rubik's clock, but it remained scrambled for twenty years until six months ago I worked through a solution - and have not touched it since.

No cubing interest until 2012, when my father presented me with his Rubik's brand and asked me if I could solve it. I did remember enough of Nourse's method to complete a solve after about half an hour. My wife said that in the car there were two Rubik's brand cubes floating about that she picked up from yard sales for the grandkids.

Now I discovered the U-Tube generation, and pieced through many videos of 12-year-olds presenting the "beginner's solution". Then I discovered the DIY Chinese speed cubes and picked up two Zhanchi's. What really hooked me was discovering Kocimba's _Cube Explorer_ and the ability to generate optimal move solutions. Over the next year I completed a catalog of all Edge-Edge with Corner-Corner exchanges, all three-cycles Edges and Corners, all Edge-Edge with Edge-Edge exchanges, all Corner-Corner with Corner-Corner exchanges.

Over the summer of 2013, I generated my own optimal left-hand bias PLL algs and committed those to memory. I figured that if I was to go through all the effort of learning an alg. that it might as well have an optimal move count. I was less concerned about triggers or fast executing algs. I preferred to approach the PLL execution as an instrumentalist, relying on dexterity to give a good execution

I discovered https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU5LRlH4XCQ _How to Memorize for Blind Solving_ by stevenarducci. I figured the lettering system presented there was just as good as any, so I went about "relearning the alphabet" as it applies to edge stickers. I applied the system to the corner stickers also.

I discovered the TuRBo method, and preceded to begin acquiring the eight edge and eighteen corner algs. I only made it to nine of the counter-clockwise edge algs and found the "reversed-direction" algs too disconcerting. By now I had programmed a move simulator, and modified the 18 TuRBo alg set into a 6 "solid-diagonal" alg set. I stumbled into the BH method, but I found that my alg set was sufficient for now. However it did steer me to modifying some of my edge algs so that they did not twist the center faces -- should I ever venture into BLD solving larger cubes.

That is where I am now. Daily practicing BLD "under the table" solves, and working up algs and setup method sets. This separates the memorization practice from the method practice, which is where my focus is now. The practice is on reading into letter pairs, writing down those letter pairs, then piecing through my dog-eared notes for every corner/edge setup and solve.

There is no satisfaction like bringing out from under the table a completely solved cube after applying about 100 moves to it strictly from feel and notes.


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## IRNjuggle28 (Jul 11, 2015)

In a way, I owe my cubing career to Kevin Hays. He went to the same high school as me, and I was in classes with his younger sister long before I knew what cubing was or who Kevin was. Even though he graduated the year before I got there, he's remembered there and I still heard about how a Rubik's cube world record holder had gone to my school. Eventually, on a whim, I looked up a video of his 6x6 world record single, and later that night, found a crappy Rubik's brand cube in my room and started messing around with it. I knew pretty much right away that I'd be hooked on it. I tried to learn CFOP intuitively, and I did figure out how to solve the first two layers on my own before caving and looking at algs for LL. 

Right away, big cubes were what interested me the most and looked the coolest to me, perhaps because Kevin is the first cuber I ever watched. The first 6 months or so I was cubing, I focused on 3x3 and didn't put much effort into big cubes, but gradually, I started doing big cubes more. 5x5 was the first event I really fell in love with. More recently, 7x7 has been the event I've tried hardest at, and if there are any events I could be considered "fast" at, it would be 7x7. I don't have a decent 6x6, but once I get one, I'll probably practice that a lot as well, to become good at every big cube, as well as to get good at Kevin's signature event.


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## cashis (Jul 11, 2015)

Cool stories guys


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## maps600 (Jul 11, 2015)

I first started cubing about two years ago, the summer before my 8th grade year. My friend James came to my house one day with a Dayan Guhong and I remember him solving it really fast (Probably about 35 seconds haha). He said his record was 22 seconds. During this time, at school, a few people could solve a Rubik's Cube but only in about a minute and a half. anyway, James taught me how to solve a side. After he had left I actually intuitively figured out how to solve the second layer of edges, but got stuck on the last layer. I used the "You Can do the Rubik's Cube" online PDF and was able to solve it from there. Being me, I was determined to beat James's 22 seconds. 

After about 4 months I had learned CFOP and was averaging about 20 seconds (I was now faster than James, my first goal), and 10 months later I was consistently sub 15 and sometimes even 14. I then picked up Roux solving for a few months but I got frustrated since I knew I could solve with CFOP faster, even though I really liked the idea of the Roux method. I ended up giving up and switching back to CFOP and I don't really regret this because sticking with Roux probably would've made me stop practicing because of lack of motivation. anyway, after going back to CFOP I was sub 14 globally. I then was able to get down to about a 12 second average overall the next few months. I then stopped practicing as heavily for a bit (This was a few months ago). I'm now back to cubing and I still average about 11.5-12 but I can feel improvement.

Well, there's my poorly written story and I hope I didn't waste too much of your time

You're welcome,
Henry


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## Berd (Jul 12, 2015)

I saw a Rubiks brand at a car boot sale back in may last year and bought it for 50 pence (75 cents?) I remember the lady asking me: "your not one of those people who can solve it 30 seconds are you?" And I just said "not yet". 1 and a quarter years in and still going strong!


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## theROUXbiksCube (Jul 12, 2015)

Okey, this seems cool.
Flash to December 2005, (5 year old me)Christmas Day and guess what I get...a chest for all of my toys leading me to clean my room (forced) and find a dusty old Rubiks Brand Cube. For the first day I tried it and being the 5 year old I was, I raged and tried to smash it on the floor but it bounced back like a brick so I left it on my desk and forgot about it entirely.
Fast Forward to last year... June 2, my friend brought in a horrible cube and once again I couldn't solve it. My dad saw me take an interest and ordered me a stickerless Dayan Zhanchi as my first speedcube. I got cocky and started competing with my friends and learned CFOP to early and sucked at it. In late August I learned full PLL and realized I had 50 algs left for full OLL  so I gave up because I still sucked with CFOP and switched to Roux. Best decision I ever made. I also tried other methods Petrus, ZZ <3 to make sure Roux was right for me. The rest is on the forums.


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## dboeren (Jul 13, 2015)

I've had a couple of false starts where I stuck with it long enough to learn beginner's method and play around a while, but nothing much really.

A while back I introduced a friend's son to cubing and downloaded the BadMephisto app for him to learn from. He's gotten into it so I bought him a Zhanchi to replace his store cube and it rekindled my own interest. So, a couple weeks ago I ordered some new cubes and after a quick stopover with the beginner's method again I decided to learn Roux w/ 2Look from Waffle's page which is *much* cooler. I'm just now getting to the point where I can do a complete solve with only minimal looking at my cheat sheet. Next plans are to firm up my algorithms a bit more to eliminate the cheat sheet and then focus on block building for a while and begin timing my solves.


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## PenguinsDontFly (Jul 13, 2015)

The first time I tried to solve the Rubik's cube was on July 1st, 2014 (Canada Day). I was at my friend's house, and on his desk was a SOLVED 3x3. I scrambled it without him noticing, and he got mad and made me learn how to solve it. I spent hours (5-6) on YouTube trying to understand the tutorials, and I finally did it! I was so happy! I copied down the algorithms and memorized them in an hour and started to get faster, getting a PB of 3 minutes 45 seconds on my first day. After about 50 solves, I was hooked. I wanted to know what the world record was. I asked my friend, and he said that its like 8 seconds by some random Australian kid (lol faz). I googled it, and found Mats Valk's 5.55 WR single. I immediately knew that I wanted to become a speedcuber. I spent hours on the internet searching for how to get faster, speedsolving methods, and speedcubes. Within my first week, I was averaging about 1:15 with the beginner's method. I decided that it was time to pick a method. Being the rebel kid I am, I first tried to learn petrus because it had few algorithms and the lowest movecount out of the "big four". I gave up after like 10 minutes because I couldn't figure out how to make a 2x2x2 block from the stupid text tutorial. I was left with CFOP, ZZ, or Roux. Now you know exactly which method I learned if you are reading this, but I was absolutely lost. I took ZZ out of the equation because of the number of algs, leaving me with CFOP and Roux. It was time for the big decision. I picked Roux because I hate being mainstream. That is literally the only reason. Gotta fight that mainstream boiys! I ordered myself a zhanchi from amazon, but I received a guhong instead. I popped it on my first turn. By August, I was down to 40 seconds, dropping my times quickly using my new speedcube. From there, I just kept improving. At the end of August, I ordered myself a lubix aolong and my times dropped quickly again. In September, I learned 3BLD and got my first success of 15 minutes lol. I didn't practice at all after my first success. By September, I had learned full CMLL. I joined the forums in October and was introduced to all you awesome people. Also, I was informed that my progress is insane. I was so surprised! I thought I was just moving along at an average pace lol. In November, my aolong was completely dead after going through thousands of solves. I decided to get a weilong v2 because I liked the aolong, but it was a little but unstable and misaligned frequently. Along with my weilong, I ordered a lingpo and an aosu. I rarely practiced 4x4 because my aosu needed a lot of breaking in and setup (and I averaged like 2 minutes lol), and I barely practiced 2x2 because my CLL layers sucked and I used 3x3 CMLLs and averaged like 8 seconds. I spammed 3x3 solves for dayz to keep up the epic improvement. Fast forward to April, and I had signed up for my first competition: national capital region 2015 in rockland, ontario. I ordered myself a stackmat to prepare. I was very nervous at the comp, and didnt do very well (at least in 3x3). I had fun, but I regret not talking to more people. I only talked to a guy named Quishi Wang, Antoine Cantin, and Louis Cormier, all very briefly. I was looking forward to meeting "rock1t" (username on speedsolving) but I couldnt find him lol. I got a pretty good *9.16 single on my first 3x3 solve* that made up a 11.09 average (would have been a low 10 but i had a +2 and a DNF). I guess this was ok for me, but I was expecting better since I averaged about 10.2 at the time. I made second round for 3x3, but failed miserably. All the scrambles sucked *** and I couldn't pick a block in inspection. I still somehow made finals, and got 5th place (meh, couldve podiumed ). In 2x2, I also made second round and finals with barely any practice, and also got 5th place. The cutoff for 4x4 was 1:15. My at-home PB was 1:09, but on my first solve, i got a PB single of 1:06. The rest of the average was ****. On my second solve, i was given the wrong cube, and had to identify mine. Luckily, I found it, but since I had seen the scramble, I had to be given an extra scramble. I solved the cube, and put it back for scrambling. What happened next you ask? Sarah misscrambled and I had to solve it again. "at least the centres are done!" -Sarah Strong, NCR2015. Finally, I did my second solve, and my third without any fails by me or staff lol. On the fourth solve, the scrambler popped my cube and i had to assemble and solve it. You all know how annoying it is to assemble aosus. I finished the fourth and fifth attempts without any more incidents. I somehow managed to do 9 solves in an average of 5, and my 4x4 round lasted like an hour. I got 12th place, with the awesome title of being the worst solver to make cutoff. After the comp, I starting practising 3x3 rigorously, doing at least 200 solves a day, but I had to stop practising for about 2 weeks to study for exams. I went hardcore nerd mode. After exams, I decided to practise all events that I can. Every day, I do 50 4x4 solves, 50 OH solves, 5 BLD attempts, 100 2x2 solves, and 100-400 3x3 solves (depending on how much time is left in the day). 

*PBs*
*PROGRESS*


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## cashis (Jul 13, 2015)

thanks pdf, was hoping you'd reply


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## PenguinsDontFly (Jul 13, 2015)

cashis said:


> thanks pdf, was hoping you'd reply



lol no problem! this was pretty much the equivalent of a member intro for me. i never made one lol


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## Sub20MinSolver (Jul 13, 2015)

i started kinda recently maybe around 3-4 months one day I was watching TheMaoiSha (a spanish cuber) and and wanted to solve a cube so the next day I said to my mom that i wanted a cube so she got me a dollar store one (was my main until stickers peeled off and put shampoo in my shengshou) i learned how to solve the cube from redkb and the first time i solved the cube without looking at the tutorial i got about 2 and a half minutes when i reached about 1 and a half minutes I
learned CFOP from paradox cubing and learned 2 look oll and pll from badmephisto then I became sub 40 and wanted to learn full pll so i started about 2-3 weeks ago and finished today (last alg was g perm) at first I was using badmephisto's algs but then I switched to chris olson's algs and now i average around sub 35


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## CubeWizard23 (Aug 6, 2015)

PenguinsdontFLY nice 6.00 PB single GOGOGOGOGO sub 6!!
99th post XD


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## PenguinsDontFly (Aug 6, 2015)

CubeWizard23 said:


> PenguinsdontFLY nice 6.00 PB single GOGOGOGOGO sub 6!!
> 99th post XD



thanks! I dont think I can get a sub 6 single anytime soon. it was a 30 move solution, ridiculously lucky.


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## CubeWizard23 (Aug 6, 2015)

PenguinsDontFly said:


> thanks! I dont think I can get a sub 6 single anytime soon. it was a 30 move solution, ridiculously lucky.



Very Nice, still trying for my first sub 10
100th post!


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## PenguinsDontFly (Aug 6, 2015)

CubeWizard23 said:


> Very Nice, still trying for my first sub 10
> 100th post!



dont worry, you'll get there. 100 posts a year lol. thanks for the sub btw! I have a very fun vid coming soon... some speedsolving users know what im talking about


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## NeilH (Aug 6, 2015)

PenguinsDontFly said:


> dont worry, you'll get there. 100 posts a year lol. thanks for the sub btw! I have a very fun vid coming soon... some speedsolving users know what im talking about



UWR m8?


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## PenguinsDontFly (Aug 6, 2015)

NeilH said:


> UWR m8?



what?


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## Reprobate (Aug 6, 2015)

It's all YouTube's fault. I was looking at something completely unrelated, but on the right hand bar in recommended videos was one of Feliks' records. I got to watching other videos, and realized that maybe any mortal really could solve a Rubik's cube. I picked one up, and learned from the instructions within a day. It evolved from there, but I am still more of a casual cuber than most people here. I like big cubes, and focused on them more than 3x3, so it's only now I'm learning full PLL for a new challenge. I wouldn't say I have any great achievements. I would guess I am comparatively better on bigger cubes, with a PB of 6:41 on 7x7, 13:45 on 8x8, and 20:42 on 9x9.


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## 2180161 (Aug 6, 2015)

I started cubing in mid January 2014. I saw a few people at my school solving them, and I thought it was frickin' awesome that they could solve it (they are still the same speed, about a minute) . So, I went home and went to the store and got one. It came with an instruction booklet with beginner's LBL (cross, FL, SL, top cross, top edges, spam Niklas, spam R' D' R D), and I used that, however I couldn't understand the spam R' D' R D because I didn't know I had to do a U move in between (just rotated). So I would spam Niklas. I finally got it after a day in a half, and could do it in about 5 minutes (due to the spam Niklas) So my friend told me to go on the Rubik's official site, and learn from their tutorial, which was same f2l, and spam F R U R' U' F' until there was a cross on top and then spam Sune to orient the corners and then 3-look PLL. I got down to about 40 seconds with that, and then learned from CBC's intuitive F2L tutorial, and learned full PLL, and the second look of 2-look oll. I then looked into other methods, like Roux, and Petrus. I didn't understand the tutorial for EO on petrus, because I thought that you could only use RU to fix bad edges *sigh*, but Roux I got. I had my first competition (wiscube) when I was about 30 seconds at home. I went on a limb and bought a YJ Sulong at the comp, and I had a bad average (wasn't used to the speed) and decided to use Roux. I then didn't go to anymore competitions for almost a year where a ended up in the top 20 at the comp, for 3x3, top 25 for 2x2 and top 20 for pyra. I went to another competition and placed 1800 for square-1 single in the world, but didnt break any PB's. So I decided I would learn every OLL, COLL, ZBLL, CMLL, CLL, EG case there was, and beat all of my averages at my next comp. (OLL is almost done COLL a little over halfway, ZBLL, I havent really started, I have 4 cases, CMLL, a little over half way, CLL, half way, eg quarter way with eg-1) I know, I'm very naive when it comes to how I think I learn algorithms well. Thanks for reading this giant wall of text


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## NeilH (Aug 6, 2015)

PenguinsDontFly said:


> what?




I assumed you're gonna solve a 3x3 on a bike.


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## FailCuber (Aug 6, 2015)

I started cubing in early 2008 I was 6 at the time and my new english teacher came in and was solving a Rubik's cube. He could solve it in 25 secs so I was pretty amazed.. So I asked him to teach me and so he teached me how to solve it. I really got into solving cubes so I became sub 25 in a month.. then about a year later I was sub 20.. In 2011 I went to US and went to a cubing comp I was really excited to compete but I messed up  . I quited cubing for 3 years and on March 2014 I came back to Korea and saw a kid in my class bragging that he was sub 40 and saying he was the World Record holder (liar) I knew it was fake. So I started cubing again and I practised hard to get sub 25 to completely win him. After I stopped him from bragging I kept practising and got a WeiLong then a Aolong v2 then a HuaLong. Now I'm sub 12.  Thanks for watching my boring story!


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## PenguinsDontFly (Aug 6, 2015)

NeilH said:


> I assumed you're gonna solve a 3x3 on a bike.



I could beat the 10 if I could ride without hands (but then again, so can hundreds of other people) 

but no, thats not the vid


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## Ordway Persyn (Aug 6, 2015)

I bought my Rubiks brand in 2009 and in 2012 saw some Videos about them, I tried to learn but I failed. I used to go to a homeschool co-op and one of the classes I took on my last year [Early 2014] was public speaking and one of the other students named Gregory was talking about how to solve a rubiks cube and When I got home I saw my rubiks brand on the shelf (the F2L was done from 2012) and looked up Dan Browns tutorial. Eventually I memorised all the algorithms and In may of last year ordered a speed cube along with a 2x2, 4x4, 5x5, and Megaminx. August of last year is When I took Speedcubing Seriously and the following month joined Speedsolving.com for Issues I was having when I was modding my ss 6x6. After 1.5 years of collecting and solving My 3x3 average Is down to 18 seconds and I almost know full OLL, and 5x5 is my favorite event with an average of ~2:05.


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## NeilH (Aug 6, 2015)

PenguinsDontFly said:


> I could beat the 10 if I could ride without hands (but then again, so can hundreds of other people)
> 
> but no, thats not the vid



You could learn to ride 0H, it's easy! 

anyway, I'm excited for the video.


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## waffle=ijm (Aug 6, 2015)

Talking muffins guide the way. Told me stories of the color cube. How color cube was friendly. Hold the color cube and twist and turn said the muffin. Talking muffin guide the way. Stare into stars, talking muffin commanded. Look into sky, twisty twist color cube. Stars tell you how to twisty twist, talking muffin say. So I listen to star man and star man say how the twisty twist happens. Look down and color cube is same on all the sides. Talking muffin, clap clap his muffin hands. Star man nods at approval. Talking muffin take the color cube again and twisty twist. Star man telling me how to twist. Muffin clap clap with his muffin hands again. Star man exhales. star dust cover the color cube. Star man fly away with talking muffin. They say good bye and tell me that I twisty twist color cube all on my own. I'm scared because star man always tell me how to twisty twist. Talking muffin talks and says. Color cube is friend. color cube will be good. keep twisty twist the color cube talking muffin says because you are star man now. I believe in talking muffin, I start attending competitions for color cube. Always get into final round but not strong enough with old star man telling me how to twisty twist. In heart and in soul, still hear talking muffin even if he gone with star man and I am star man now.

Then I woke up and watched a couple of videos and learned to cube, made tutorial videos, got a bit faster at cubing, started to host a cubing podcast and here I am.


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## Knut (Aug 6, 2015)

For me it all started when one of my best friends got into slider puzzles. He would always have little 3x3 slider puzzle with him, and would amaze people with his speed. After a while he got a bit bored with them, and one day back in 2012 I saw him with a Rubik's cube. I asked him if he could solve it, but he couldn't at the time. A couple weeks later and he showed me he could solve it in about 2 minutes, and immediately I was intrigued. 
That night I went home, dug up an old Rubik's brand cube with pictures of my dad on one side that he had gotten for Christmas one year (still have it) and solved it for the first time that evening. I thought it was pretty neat, but didn't get around to memorizing the LL algs until about a month later. I used the beginner's method for a while, got another Rubik's brand cube, sanded it out a bit and learned a couple of finger tricks. Nearly killed my fingers, but it was cool.
Soon I learned 2 look OLL and started on full PLL, and focused on getting faster, as my friend had still been improving this whole time and was averaging about 35.
For Christmas of 2013 I bought 2 stickerless Zhanchi's, gave one to my friend and we both improved quite a bit. Still kept competing against him for who was fastest.
Around that time I got a little bored of CFOP, so I learned Petrus (ish, eo confused me), and soon after Roux. Both seemed pretty cool, but eventually I got back to CFOP and in the next couple months I got down to averaging about 24. (although somehow I got a PB of 14.40!?!)
About a year ago I got bored with CFOP again, and since Roux seemed really fun I took up the challenge and tried it for a while. Got down to about 35, but then school started back up and I dropped cubing for a while. I still solved every now and then, (still kept racing my friend who had also had less time for it and averaged about 25) but I didn't do it that often.
Then at the beginning of this summer when school and robotics season (<-- that's what really ate up my life  ) came to a close I picked up the cube again. I used CFOP for about a week, but then went back to Roux as it was so much more fun. Over the summer I learned a ton about block building, learned several CMLLs, and I currently average about 21.5. A couple weeks ago I broke my 14.40 CFOP PB with a 14.12, and officially decided I was faster with Roux. In the last week I've broken that PB four times, and now have it down to 13.55, with a couple of sub 20 averages. 
SUB 20 HERE I COME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow that was long.


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## camcuber (Aug 6, 2015)

My fascination with cubing began during my 6th grade track day. Some kid had a cube and we all took turns messing with it. We were all trying our best to solve it but couldn't get more than a few matching stickers on each side. Shortly after that I watched the Pursuit of Happiness and when I saw Will Smith solve the cube I told my mom that I wanted to be able to do that. The next day after school she picked me up and had a cube waiting for me in the car! From there I learned the beginners method from some website called chess and poker that had algorithms that didn't even work so I had to hope that I wouldn't get certain cases. After perfecting the beginners method and getting it down to a little over a minute, a friend of mine that learned the cube alongside me found the Fridrich method. After learning all of my F2L, OLL and PLL cases my times quickly fell to the low 20's. I had my first competition in 2008 at the Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana, CA and I broke my pb with an 18 second single! A year later, I decided to open up SpeedCubeShop and continued to practice cubing. Present day, I have a 7.62 official that I am very proud of


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## WayneMigraine (Aug 6, 2015)

waffle=ijm said:


> Talking muffins guide the way. Told me stories of the color cube. How color cube was friendly. Hold the color cube and twist and turn said the muffin. Talking muffin guide the way. Stare into stars, talking muffin commanded. Look into sky, twisty twist color cube. Stars tell you how to twisty twist, talking muffin say. So I listen to star man and star man say how the twisty twist happens. Look down and color cube is same on all the sides. Talking muffin, clap clap his muffin hands. Star man nods at approval. Talking muffin take the color cube again and twisty twist. Star man telling me how to twist. Muffin clap clap with his muffin hands again. Star man exhales. star dust cover the color cube. Star man fly away with talking muffin. They say good bye and tell me that I twisty twist color cube all on my own. I'm scared because star man always tell me how to twisty twist. Talking muffin talks and says. Color cube is friend. color cube will be good. keep twisty twist the color cube talking muffin says because you are star man now. I believe in talking muffin, I start attending competitions for color cube. Always get into final round but not strong enough with old star man telling me how to twisty twist. In heart and in soul, still hear talking muffin even if he gone with star man and I am star man now.
> 
> Then I woke up and watched a couple of videos and learned to cube, made tutorial videos, got a bit faster at cubing, started to host a cubing podcast and here I am.



Same. Except for the part about hosting a podcast.


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## MartyMcFly (Aug 30, 2015)

About a year ago, I was at my Dad's friend's cottage and he had a Rubik's cube. I played with it for a couple ours and finally learned how to solve one side (not correctly though ). The following week I saw a speed cuber at camp doing it quickly while in the splits and it inspired my friend to begin solving it. He taught me how to do one side properly and I was pretty satisfied with my self. A couple months later he lost interest in it and asked if I wanted his cube,and I said sure. The cube was in pretty bad shape (missing 3-4 stickers) and it made it hard to understand tutorials. I went to Wall Mart and bought a brand new cube. After a few days of replaying tutorials and writing down LBL algs I solved it. I flipped out and showed everybody n my family the solved cube. Slowly, I began to solve the cube faster and I started timing my self. My initial times were around two and half minutes and I was determined to get under 2m. I went online and like the noob I was believed that the only manufacturer of cubes was Rubik's. I bought the Rubik's speed cube and a 2x2. After about 4 weeks (yes 4) I finally received the two cubes. I was amazed at how much better the 3x3 turned and I got my times down to about 1m 45s. I began to learn how to solve the 2x2 and my times were around 50s. About 2 months went by and I began to plateau. After b beginning to watch cube related videos on YouTube I learned that there were much better cubes than my Rubik's brand. I went online and ordered a Dayan stickerless 2x2, stickerless 3x3 (Zhanchi), and a MF8/Dayan 4x4. I tracked those cubes everyday online until they finally arrived on my doorstep. I was thrilled at how well the 2x2 and 3x3 preformed and I dropped my 3x3 times to 1m 20s. My 2x2 times also improved to around 20s. After a couple of months I slowed down my solves per day unitil I was solving probally once a day. After months of minimal cubing and began to to become more and more interested in cubing. I watched endless cubing videos by CrazyBadCuber, Felix, JRCuber, etc. During this time I aquired a Shengshou 3x3 (Auroa), 5x5, Pyraminx, and a Z-Cube 2x2x3. I have even started my own YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgqm7XIqXhDr0L16FF3pkQQ). My times have drastically improved as I have learned 4ll and my version of F2L (40s avg). The most improved time is 2x2 in which I practice so much (50-75 solves a day). Currently I have a regular 7s (3.25 single pb) avg. This might seem really long and drawn out but I doesn't matter because I had a lot of fun writing it!


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## PenguinsDontFly (Aug 30, 2015)

MartyMcFly said:


> About a year ago, I was at my Dad's friend's cottage and he had a Rubik's cube. I played with it for a couple ours and finally learned how to solve one side (not correctly though ). The following week I saw a speed cuber at camp doing it quickly while in the splits and it inspired my friend to begin solving it. He taught me how to do one side properly and I was pretty satisfied with my self. A couple months later he lost interest in it and asked if I wanted his cube,and I said sure. The cube was in pretty bad shape (missing 3-4 stickers) and it made it hard to understand tutorials. I went to Wall Mart and bought a brand new cube. After a few days of replaying tutorials and writing down LBL algs I solved it. I flipped out and showed everybody n my family the solved cube. Slowly, I began to solve the cube faster and I started timing my self. My initial times were around two and half minutes and I was determined to get under 2m. I went online and like the noob I was believed that the only manufacturer of cubes was Rubik's. I bought the Rubik's speed cube and a 2x2. After about 4 weeks (yes 4) I finally received the two cubes. I was amazed at how much better the 3x3 turned and I got my times down to about 1m 45s. I began to learn how to solve the 2x2 and my times were around 50s. About 2 months went by and I began to plateau. After b beginning to watch cube related videos on YouTube I learned that there were much better cubes than my Rubik's brand. I went online and ordered a Dayan stickerless 2x2, stickerless 3x3 (Zhanchi), and a MF8/Dayan 4x4. I tracked those cubes everyday online until they finally arrived on my doorstep. I was thrilled at how well the 2x2 and 3x3 preformed and I dropped my 3x3 times to 1m 20s. My 2x2 times also improved to around 20s. After a couple of months I slowed down my solves per day unitil I was solving probally once a day. After months of minimal cubing and began to to become more and more interested in cubing. I watched endless cubing videos by CrazyBadCuber, Felix, JRCuber, etc. During this time I aquired a Shengshou 3x3 (Auroa), 5x5, Pyraminx, and a Z-Cube 2x2x3. I have even started my own YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgqm7XIqXhDr0L16FF3pkQQ). My times have drastically improved as I have learned 4ll and my version of F2L (40s avg). The most improved time is 2x2 in which I practice so much (50-75 solves a day). Currently I have a regular 7s (3.25 single pb) avg. This might seem really long and drawn out but I doesn't matter because I had a lot of fun writing it!



cool! where in canada are you from?


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## DanielTuttle (Aug 30, 2015)

I first solved a cube 3 years ago, within a few days I could average at about a 1:30 or so. After about 4 months I averaged at 45 seconds. I didnt cube very much back then. After that I quit cubing 2 years later a british guy came to my school, he got me back into cubing and I averaged 38 seconds, but sadly he moved away 5 months later. I was sad and quit cubing. About 8 months later I started again. This is now, I just got back into cubing and am learning all my plls, I need to learn 3 more. I average 30 seconds and cant wait to get better and be a part of the community. This time I wont quit.


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## jamessorsona (Aug 31, 2015)

It all started October 2013 when there was a Rubik's Cube competition at school by our Math club. At that time, I thought rubik's cubes were a waste of time and didn't even bother to learn beginner's method. So the day of the competition came, I was just there sitting and watching people solve 3x3s at around 45s. Then the evening that day, I looked up the world record then saw a 5.55 by Mats. Then I thought to myself "Wow, I would like to be one of those and join future comps in school to impress people". So the next day, my classmate thought me the beginner's method. I learned in about a week then I averaged around 40s. I knew I can do better, so I looked up the next advanced method, CFOP. Then it became a steady progression, I averaged around 20-25s. Then just last year I won our school's rubik's cube comp. 
I am proud to say that I, the person who once thought rubik's cubes were pointless and a waste of time, is now holding the school record and is the fastest among everybody in our school. Seriously, I am the only one who averages around 12-15s today. I know some schoolmates who devotes their time practicing and learning, and they've done that for almost 5 years now. I didn't even believe I was gonna beat them all in just under 2 years. Just 2 years ago, I was nub and didn't know anything about rubik's cubes.


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## WongBob (Sep 7, 2015)

My mom was pregnant with my little bro three years ago, and I had to go live at a friend's house for a few days while she was going into labor. It was like 2 am in the morning and we were just staying up being bored and all, when he suddenly asked me if I knew how to solve a Rubik's cube. I said I didn't and he showed me a really fast solve at ~40 seconds. I was like no way bro, I can do that too. So the next day he "taught" me how to solve a cube. His method of teaching was something like this: "So basically just make a white cross thingy on one side and then fill in the corners and then fill in the edges and then work some magic and ur done." So I kept playing around wiht the cube until I figured out how to solve the first layer, which took me something an hour or so. Then I took another 2 hours trying to figure out how the heck you solve the edges. Eventually I got it. I looked up some last layer algs online and succesfully solved a 3x3 for first time. Over the next month, I perfected my beginner's method down to around 35 seconds, which was faster than my friend already. When I found out about CFOP, I freaked and learned intuitive F2L in a day. I also learned 4-look last layer over the next 2 days. After a week of practicing, I had my first half-decent PB of 22 seconds. I stopped cubing for like 2.5 years, and started up again 6 months ago. I started casually just solving for fun over the next 3 months, but when summer hit, I finished up all the PLL algs. After a month of practicing, I was averaging ~25 easy. From then till now, which is about 2 months, I have not cubed so heavily, and only average about 20 flat. This year I'll be super busy with SATs and stuff, so I won't be improving much till next summer. But when next summer hits, I'll be reaching for that sub 10! Also, I started a Cubing Club in my school, so maybe I will improve a bit over this school year. Hopefully will be sub 15 avg when the year is over!


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## Isaac Lai (Sep 7, 2015)

Although I technically only started speedcubing a year (and one day) ago, I kind of knew how to solve it before.

In November 2012, I showed up early for a friend's birthday party. He happened to have a a cube lying around. So we went onto the Rubik's website (Don't learn from there, the U perms are terrible) and after 45 minutes, we had a solved cube in front of us. After I went home, I dug out my old, rusty and unsolved Rubik's brand from the toy box, and proceeded to solve it with the solution from the Rubik's website in front of me.

However, after that, I found Feliks' 5.66 WR on Youtube and thought to myself, "I'll never be able to do that." So I felt content with having my Rubik’s brand sitting there solved in the toy box.

But in early 2013, my classmate brought a cube to school, and he knew how to solve it. I remembered what had happened the year before, and memorised the algorithms from the guide. I then brought my cube to school and showed him that I too was capable of solving it. Eventually, a few of us learnt to solve it. However, this only lasted for less than a week. That year happened to be the year where we would be taking our Primary School Leaving Examination (a super high-stakes exam to decide which secondary school you go to), and we were all busy studying for it. 

But yet again, in August last year, my friend (from a new school, so he had no idea that I could solve a cube) happened to bring one of those crappy keychain cubes to school. I borrowed it from him and solved it for him. He was mesmerised, so much so that it got confiscated by our teacher because he was playing with it during class. The teacher said that he would have to write a 500 word reflection about paying attention in class to get it back. Well, it kinda backfired because my friend decided that it was not worth it, and bought a YJ Chi/Su/Yulong from a toy store. He brought it to school, and I was amazed at how much better it was than my Rubik's brand. So after doing a bit of research (but probably not enough, since I didn't come across any Moyu cubes), I bought a Dayan Zhanchi from a local toy store on 6 September 2014.

And so, I was hooked. After my exams ended in October, I cubed a lot. I also bought a Skewb and Pyraminx in November. 

On 2 January 2015, I finally broke the sub-30 barrier. I was quite happy with this, but it spurred me to get faster. I also learnt Sarah's Intermediate for skewb and keyhole for pyraminx. 
I attended my first and only (why does Singapore only have one comp a year) competition in early February. I wasn't too satisfied with my results (Pyra DNF average, stupid 3x3 average), but at least I placed 5th in skewb and got a nice 3x3 and skewb single. I also bought a Dayan 2x2, a Mini Aolong and a Mini Aosu at the comp.

After seeing how close I was to podiuming in skewb, I started spamming skewb practice, getting down to a global sub 5.5 average. However, I realised that I had kind of neglected 3x3. So I started practising 3x3 again and broke the sub-20 barrier in April this year. In early May, I took a week-long break to focus on my exams (didn't do too well though). 

My mid-year exams ended soon after, and so once again I started practicing. I got a Square-1 (which I still can't solve without instructions) and Megaminx. This time, I also started practising 2x2, 4x4 and mega. In addition, I polished up on 1-flip (pyra) and Ortega (2x2), and also learnt Sarah's advanced (skewb) and Oka (Pyra). After spamming practice in June, I was sub-3 on 2x2, sub-15 on 3x3, sub-1:30 on 4x4, sub-5 on skewb and sub-5 on pyra.

Since then, I still practise quite actively, but not quite as much as in June since it's the school term. However, I did get my Gans 356 in July and it is absolutely amazing. I also started OH and BLD but I'm still not that good. Now isn't a good time to practise BLD because I am so slow, making BLD very time consuming. Also, to maintain my speed in all events, I started doing the weekly comps. 

As my end of year exams are coming, I'll be cubing less. But once they're over in October, it's practice time

PBs


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## Iggy (Sep 9, 2015)

In November 2009, my friends decided to bring their cubes (really badly kept ones, some stickers were missing) to school. Most of them could solve a face, but I couldn't. This made me frustrated lol, so I went back home and messed around with my Rubik's brand until I finally solved a side. After that, I decided to learn how to solve the entire cube, so I went online and checked out some tutorials. After a few days, I solved it, and became obsessed with it  I got down to around 1:30 with the beginners method I think, until I came across a video talking about F2L somewhere around mid 2010. I decided to learn F2L, and this brought me down to a 1:00 average. I was quite happy with where I was at that time, so I didn't really expect to improve or anything. I also got a 4x4 and a 5x5 (pretty bad ones) and learnt how to solve them. However, I started losing interest in cubing later that year due to an important exam I had that year. I tried getting back to cubing at around late 2010, but a center piece in my cube broke  I did occasionally do big cubes though

In around April 2011, I got a new 3x3, a bj one lol, but I was happy with it. I started improving a lot over the next few months, I got down to sub 30 by around July. I then started watching a lot of fast cubers like Feliks, Nakaji and Erik (funny how I didn't find out about them before). Like almost everyone else, I was amazed at Feliks' 5.66  Soon after, I found out about the WCA and found out that Malaysia hosts comps sometimes. I didn't ever think of competing though 

In early 2012, I was approaching sub 20 with full PLL and a few OLLs I think. I was still using my crappy cube though  I decided to try to persuade my mother to get me a Zhanchi and a bunch of other speedcubes, and surprisingly she didn't mind getting them for me lol. Not long after getting these cubes, I checked the WCA and found out that there was going to be a competition in Malaysia in April. My mother said she was okay with bringing me to the comp, so I went to my first comp ever  At that comp, I somehow managed to win Magic, and this made me want to get good at it. I got my first Master Magic after that comp and with some practice, I became one of the fastest Malaysians at it. I started aiming for the NR, but I never got it, I failed all 4 rounds I competed in 

After the removal of Magics was announced in July 2012, I decided to start focusing on another event, so I chose Pyraminx. I learnt a bunch of top-first methods and practiced a lot. I also started practicing Clock after realising how easy it is to get to sub 10. The Clock NRs back then were kinda crappy, so I thought getting the NRs wouldn't be too hard  In November 2012, I decided to learn BLD. I tried learning it before that, but I gave up thinking it was too hard. After getting my first success, I started improving a lot. By January 2013, I was sub 6 at Pyra, almost sub 10 at Clock and sub 2 at 3BLD. At a comp later that month, I broke my first 2 NRs (for Clock) and missed the Pyraminx NR average by 0.01  After that comp, I started practicing BLD a lot. I got my first sub 1 single in February and my first sub 41.58 (NR at that time) in May. Of course, this made me start aiming for the 3BLD NR, but there weren't any comps at that time so I couldn't compete. I had also started big BLD and multi, but I mainly did 3BLD so it was my best BLD event. By September 2013, I was averaging sub 9 on Clock, sub 5 on Pyra and around 5:30 for 4BLD. I went to a comp in Singapore and failed most of my solves  

After the comp, I started doing more 5BLD. In November 2013, I got my first sub AsR, and this gave me the motivation to aim for the AsR. I started improving a lot, until I got down to around 8:00 in February 2014. At that time I averaged around 4:00 on 4BLD. I went to Singapore Open 2014 wanting to get the 5BLD AsR and the 4BLD NR. I ended up DNFing 5BLD, but I did really well in 4BLD! At that time, 3:09.91 was only my 2nd sub 3:10  I was in shock when that happened lol. Being just one rank below Ollie was amazing 

I continued to practice BLD after that. In July 2014, I organised Melaka Open with the help of my parents. I managed to break the 5BLD AsR, but it was slow so I was pretty disappointed lol. I also got a 19/21 MBLD, but that was also disappointing because it was just 3 minutes slower than the AsR. 21 cubes in 57 minutes is also kinda slow for me. After that, I wanted to aim for a WR, but I just didn't have the patience or mood to intensively practice like how I once did  

Along the way I practiced many other events, up to the point where I became the most all rounded Malaysian cuber  I'm even aproaching sub 10 on 3x3, something I never thought would happen lol. It's interesting how in 2012 I was known as the nub who only did magic, and now I'm known as the guy who's pretty decent at every event  (by Malaysian cubers anyway)

So yeah that's my story. It's almost been 6 years since I started and I'm still obsessed with it


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## mDiPalma (Sep 9, 2015)

2006, learned snyder method 1 (aka LBL)
2010, got an F2. was mad impressed. got an AV. learned F2L+PLL
2011, learned columns first. horrible. Captain's Cove 2011 was first comp. saw dan cohen and bruce
2012, zz, some more cubes. comps.
2013, started cube club at college
2014, petrus/heise/snyder, bought a moyu cube
2015, keep forgetting to register for comps


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## Brold (Oct 16, 2015)

So I was watching youtube videos in March 2014 (May have been April or Febuary) and I came across MeMySelfandPi. I remember watching a lego video by him and started watching his cubing videos (National Cubing Competition). I was in awe and decided I wanted to do this. So I was leaving for a trip in May 2014 and I got a rubiks cube to take with me. I learned how to solve over the trip but didn't actually solve it till I got back. I went to my first cubing competition in January 2015. Around that time I learned roux. I got a new pb with roux (21s). I don't remember when I got the pb but it was either in February or April. I took a brake from cubing for a couple of months and now I'm getting back into it.


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## Matt11111 (Dec 20, 2015)

In the summer of 2013, I went to my cousins' house and they had a Rubik's Cube. I started trying to solve it, and eventually, I got my own for Christmas. I learned how to solve it the next day, and that may have been a mistake at first. Because my brother also had one of his own and asked me to solve it every 2 minutes. By the new year, I was able to solve the cube in under 2 minutes or so. Eventually, I got a GuanLong for my 12th birthday, my first speedcube. By that point, I was averaging around 40 seconds, and as soon as I started using the GuanLong, I was sub-30. I practiced a bit with the GuanLong until I got an AoLong V2, which got me to sub-20, at which point, I sold my GuanLong to a friend from Mathcounts (almost sold it for $20, but I talked him out of it). Then I got a YuXin 3x3 and that was my main until about a month after I got my QiYi Thunderclap at Manhasset Fall.

I've also bought a variety of other puzzles (Mega, Pyra, Squan, Skewb, Curvy Copter, 2 4x4's, 2 5x5's, etc). Naturally, when people become speedcubers, they tend to blow their friends' minds. That's exactly what happened in 6th grade when I started bringing my cube(s) to school. Around the same time, another kid in my class was getting into magic, so the two of us kind of broke everybody's brains. We've become pretty good friends over the years, and I've learned a few magic tricks from him. 

Speaking of cubing in school, I would tend to talk about cubing for an assignment whenever I possibly could. My 7th grade math fair project was Rubik's Cubes, an assignment on which I got an 86 for the presentation. But to be fair, for the entire hour that the math fair was going on, there were a ton of people at my booth. There was another kid with a booth on the other side of the cafeteria who was also doing Rubik's Cube. At one point, I had to go over there to help him out when he only had the first two layers solved (he had only memorized the first two layers at that point; he couldn't do the last layer). Now I'm in 8th grade, and we're doing senior speeches for a chance to speak to the whole middle school about a topic that interests you. And I chose, you guessed it! 

At my school's variety show, I solved 4 3x3's, a 2x2, a Pyraminx, and a Skewb in 2 minutes, 26 seconds. My school posted this on Facebook, and you can see the video here.https://www.facebook.com/BerkeleyCarrollSchool/videos/10155450400635484/

What they didn't include was the beginning part, in which I explained my act and I had a friend scramble my cubes with me.

To date, I've been to 2 competitions, with 1 coming up. At Red Cross 2014, I placed 81st in 3x3, and at Manhasset 2015, I placed 28th in Pyra, 36th in 2x2, and 42nd in 3x3, all of which I'm very happy with. I'm going to the upcoming Big Apple Cube Clash, in which I will be competing in 2x2, 3x3, and OH.

Some people will just sit there letting their mind be blown while I solve a cube, but others, i.e. a group of fifth graders at my school, will follow suit and learn how to solve the Rubik's Cube. I've become pretty good friends with several of them, and one is in chess society with me, with another two on my school bus. One of them has a Rubik's brand with baby powder poured into it. Don't ask me... ask his dad. So I invited them to come to Big Apple with me.


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## b0ssGuy23 (Dec 20, 2015)

The Christmas of 2008, I got a Rubik's Brand. Me being the idiot I was, I attempted to "solve" it by taking it apart and to this day, It's lying in a bag waiting to be assembled. 

I went to school in December of 2014, and I saw this kid in my Orchestra class with a cube and I saw him solve it. I was extremely impressed, and I bought a Newisland Pheonix for Christmas. Cubing became big at my school, so I timed myself right away. I used TheSergsB tutorial and got around a minute, and I quickly became one of the fastest at my school. 

I saw a bunch of World Records on YouTube, and I always wanted to go to a competition, so I searched up "competitions near me". CubingUSA popped up, and I saw Peach State 2015. I was on the waitlist, and I got an email saying a spot was open and I claimed it quickly. I had a bunch of fun. Ray, if you're reading this, thanks for organizing my first competition! You can see my official results on my sidebar.

Me as a cuber, I'm happy. I have a lot of cubing friends, all of which I talk to on a regular basis. I average 17 seconds using CFOP.


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## YouCubing (Dec 20, 2015)

2012: Me. I hate me. I collected about 25 different puzzles that I couldn't solve (except Pyra ofc xD)
Mid-Jan 2015: I picked up my C4Y 3x3x5 and tried to solve it (and couldn't ofc xD) but I then decided to REALLY try to solve all my puzzles by looking at the book that I very wittingly didn't look at when I got it in 2012.
Feb 22, 2015: Solved a 3x3 with no outside help (basically I had memorized all the algs) for the first time in ~3:36.
Sometime in March 2015: Got my first speedcube, a Newisland Phoenix (lolty) and I searched for some comps. I saw one in Hilton Head (lolnats) but didn't think much of it because I saw Peach State 2015 (lolray) and "persuaded (it wasn't that hard)" my dad to take me.
May 23, 2015: Went to Peach State yay. I got an almost overall PB avg5 of (get ready to cringe) 36.16 (keep reading once cringing session is done). And I beat lolty but didn't care because I hardly knew him then.
After that is pretty clear, I got the WR for nubbiest individual.

Oh and that's why I don't suck at Pyra, I got through the nub stages early.


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## josh42732 (Dec 21, 2015)

Was bored with watching gaming YouTube videos, so I thought, "What can I do that will get people to be impressed by me at school...?" so I looked up how to solve a Rubik's Cube without even having one. I stumbled across Rob's World Tutorial (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6CD08F940E40DCDB) and asked for my mom to get me a cube. She got me one, and I solved it the week I got it. I remember watching the videos and thinking, "this will be so easy" then when I ran into cases that he talked about, I couldn't figure it out. I was soooo mad at the stupid thing, and threw it against my wall. In the middle of the playlist, I started over from square 1 (see what I did there?) to make sure that I hadn't done anything wrong. I wrote down the algorithms that he taught on index cards, which is a strategy I still use to this day to memorize algs faster and more efficient, and practiced, practiced, and practiced even more. I would come home from school around 3:30 ish, and would practice it until 9:00 or whenever dinner was. It took me a week to learn how to solve it. After that, the cube became "too easy" to solve, and told myself that nobody will be impressed to do this. If learning it was this easy, why is it so hard? So, I learned BLD from Zane's tutorial. I wrote down the algs on index cards, and drilled them. The t-perm is still my favorite PLL to this day. I was just doing solves a whole lot, and somehow learned F2L, full PLL, and 2-look OLL. I couldn't tell you how I learned those, but I did, and now I know 37 OLL's, can solve 4x4 BLD, and am sub-18. Sorry for long post. 





yay


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## jonlin (Dec 22, 2015)

So back in 2008, my father ended up learning how to solve that cube that was on the shelf for a while. I managed to get it as well, after a while. Not bad for 8 year old me.

I learned the basics of Fridrich from a youtuber called Rustomac. I couldn't get much faster than 50 seconds so I just quit.
I pick cubing back up when I enter the 6th grade. Seeing that Feliks had broken the WR over Erik's 7.08 inspired me to get better (Erik was one of my heroes at the time I think) and I picked up a Guhong on Amazon, I think.

My first comp was River Hill Winter 2012, and there's probably footage of me popping off on a 15.xx single someplace.

I am here now. Dunno what happened with the time.


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## Torch (Dec 24, 2015)

In March or April of 2011, when I was 11, I saw a Rubik's cube at Walmart, saw that it came with instructions, and decided to buy it. At first I couldn't really understand how to do cross and first layer corners, but luckily my mom had learned a solution back in the 80s and could still remember how to make a layer intuitively. Eventually I figured out how to do everything without looking at the sheet, and my first timed solve was about six minutes. Soon I was down to about 1:00-1:30.

In August I found the World Cube Association website and discovered that the Marietta Open 2011 had happened literally like the previous Saturday. I saw it had happened for two years in a row so I assumed it would happen again the next year. I learned PLL and got down to 50 seconds, and also bought other puzzles like 5x5 and skewb, but lost interest when I misplaced my cube for a while and no competitions were happening in my area.

April of 2013 I found my cube again and very quickly relearned all my old algorithms and got down to sub-30. I learned how to do blind, followed the World Championships that summer, and joined this forum. By November I averaged about 25 (still using a Rubik's brand). My family went on vacation for my dad to do Ironman Florida, and I brought my cube, did loads of untimed solves on all color crosses, and came back color neutral (not quite, but I was back to my old times in a month).

In January 2014 I finally bought a speedcube (a SuLong) and basically instantly became sub-20. In February I saw the South Carolina competition scheduled for May, and my parents decided to take me for my birthday. Unfortunately that competition was canceled, so they agreed that I could go to Michigan May Madness 2014 instead. At that competition I got a sub-20 3x3 average and (more importantly) met Kit Clement, who talked to me about the possibility of having a competition in Georgia that December.

For the rest of 2014 I got faster (including an official sub-15 average), went some more comps (FMC USA 2014, Charlotte Fall 2014, and Florida Feast 2014), met some more people (not going to name any cuz I might leave someone out) and tried to coordinate with Kit and my church to have a competition. However, Kit couldn't make it to Georgia that winter, so I went through about 87 other delegates trying to find someone to delegate my competition. No one could, and about that time my youth minister got really busy and couldn't help get the church as a venue, so I kind of lost hope that the competition would ever happen.

In January 2015, however, I managed to reestablish contact with my youth minister to get the church as a venue, find a date that worked for Kit, and finally get everything together. Peach State 2015 on May 23-24, 2015 was announced, I believe, at the very end of January. We put a 50 competitor limit mainly because of the size of the venue, but we didn't expect to hit it. We reached capacity in just 7 weeks and managed to put over 30 people on a waiting list. Around February I also decided to go to Indiana 2015, and Mike Hughey offered me the opportunity to be a staff member for that comp. It was also that winter that Nationals 2015 was announced just 4.5 hours from where I live, and we decided to make a family vacation of it.

Peach State came around in May, and due to some cool circumstances, we had some visiting competitors like Anthony Brooks and Callum Hales-Jepp. I was quite stressed and worried about organizing my first competition but due to help from people like Kit, Anthony, Chris Tran, Chris Krueger, and James LaChance, we were able to hold all the tentative events and an extra round of 3x3. I also got some nice PBs in 2x2 and 3x3, the only events I competed in because I was organizing. After the first day of that competition, we went to Varasano's restaurant in Atlanta, which was an awesome experience even though I had to leave early.

Right after (actually even before) Peach State, I started looking into places to hold my next competition, and hit upon the Georgia World Congress Center. Though they wanted quite a lot of money, I was confident there was a lot of demand for competitions in the area and got James to be my delegate for Atlanta Open 2015 on August 8th. I chose that date since it was the week after Nationals, and I hoped that some people might stay a week in the southeast for it, though I think only 3? people actually did, and two of them stayed with James.

Also right after Peach State, Chris Tran made this post, and I offered to take him to Indiana instead, which was the same weekend. We planned to arrive two hours early for the Friday portion of the competition, but due to funny circumstances involving a dump truck and a boatload of asphalt, we ended up 30 minutes late. My results at Indiana were half-brilliant, half awful: I got overall PB single in 4x4, a 7.5 average in Pyra even though I never practiced, made Square-1 cutoff, and got 2/2 in multiblind; but I didn't get a single sub-13 in 3x3, had a rather humiliating experience in Feet, failed awfully on FMC (at least the first two solves), and DNFed all my 3 and 4BLD solves.



Spoiler: Irrelevant side notes about Indiana



Side note 1: Mike, I want to apologize for asking to be added to Pyra at literally the last minute and kinda slacking in my staff duties especially on Friday night.
Side note 2: The things that happened to me at Indiana really reinforce my belief that everything happens for a reason. If I hadn't had everything happen up to multiblind, I certainly wouldn't have had my 2/2 and gotten very into multiblind, and some things happened to me the next week that definitely would not have if I had shown up to a certain place following Monday even 30 seconds later. Basically I know the butterfly effect is strong, and even a slight change that might appear good at the time, like a nice 3x3 average, would completely change the course of my life by putting me in different situations at different times.



That summer, I practiced a lot for Nationals, got to show off my cubing at driver's ed class and Catholic Heart Workcamp, and got REALLY into multiblind, to the extent I was doing two 13 cube attempts a day. I finally got 13/13 two day before Nationals started, but I wasn't too hopeful about my chances officially.

I showed up to Nationals Thursday at noon and began the most whirlwind experience of my life. From that moment until Sunday night, I would be either in the competition room, my hotel room, or on the path between them except when I went to Mass Sunday morning. I never actually saw the ocean (luckily I had actually been to Hilton Head earlier that summer and swam then). I competed in the staff comp Thursday and basically did staff stuff the rest of the weekend, since I only made a couple second rounds. I made most of my realistic goals, but none of my optimistic goals. I got 12/13 MBLD, missed a good BLD mean and a spot in finals because of 3 edges, couldn't write down an FMC solution in time, missed half the seminars because scorechecking, and basically got so little sleep I went almost literally insane on the drive home Sunday night. All in all, excellent experience!

Around Nationals I was also dealing with organizing Atlanta Open. Competitor numbers had ballooned and we hit the 100 person limit early. Because I hadn't posted that there was a limit until pretty late, I got 8000 emails asking for late entry, one person who I think tried to register but had the system glitch out on them, and ended up having a walk-up waiting list for 3x3 only in the end. The competition itself didn't go well at all; we had 100+ competitors and no real staff, so we ended up an hour behind schedule. My results were awful, aside from my first sub-11 3x3 single.

After Atlanta, Music City 2015 was announced, and I made plans to go with Chris. It was the first comp since Florida Feast 2014 that I wasn't a staff member (officially, at least, since I did help a lot). My times were bad in 2x2, 3x3, and 4x4, I missed a BLD mean again, and I did unexpectedly well in Pyra and Skewb.

After Music City, I decided to get serious and learn some algs; I learned COLL and quite a few OLLCPs, as well as some more advanced edge control and some WV. I also got into SQ-1.

It was around that time that Chris became a delegate, and Katie Hull and Jacob Ambrose organized Athens Fall 2015. This was the first competition that my mom took me to instead of my dad, and she also competed! Almost everyone cracked under the pressure of Nationals-style finals, but I got a 12.15 average and 4th place. FMC USA 2015 was the next day, and I managed 4th place there too somehow.

At that point I had been wanting to go to another Florida comp for quite a while, but they had all been on days I was busy. Luckily the weekend of Florida Feast 2015 I was free, so I got to meet a bunch of cubers I either hadn't met before or hadn't seen since Florida Feast 2014. I got a 11.39 average out of nowhere, missed a sub-10 single, missed a BLD mean again, and got clock SR average (lol). Shoutout to Benjamin Christie, I should have taken up his offer to compete in the squid hat.

My next competition was Athens Winter Mystery 2015, which only had 3x3 and Mega. I had a PB streak going back to my first competition, so I was worried that if I only did 3x3, I might lose that streak. So I bought a Megaminx that I swear had to be the only package TheCubicle shipped out on time that week, and in 9 days went from my first megaminx solve (almost 7 minutes) to an official 1:50 average. I correctly predicted that I wouldn't get a 3x3 PB (though see my thoughts on the butterfly effect in Side Note 2 above), but I did podium (sorry Katie).

So here we are today! I'm going to Music City Winter 2016, US Nationals 2016, (probably) Alpharetta Open 2016, and organizing Peach State Winter 2016. I'm starting to like 5x5 and also get back into Big and multi BLD. Hopefully I get some cubes for Christmas (6x6 pls). I have some fairly ambitious goals for the next year, but nothing impossible. Probably the one I'm most excited to achieve is trying to get some of my friends from church into cubing; hopefully Peach State Winter will get them interested?

And yes, I realize I've just basically written half a novel here, but I'm always happy to talk about my personal cubing experience. I'll continue to add to this post as I have more cubing story to tell!

UPDATE 4/15/16: Things have changed quite a bit in the 4 months since I posted this! I'll try to run through it all here.

At the beginning of the year I went to Music City Winter 2016. Before the competition I was quite worried that the large number of competitors would lead to problems, so I basically decided that I didn't care about my own times and would just try to help out the best I could with organization. Sure enough, the competition turned into what is generously described as a logistical nightmare, and the only event I did decently in was 4x4. 

I came home from Nashville with all the equipment for my competition, Peach State Winter 2016, determined to have a smooth, on schedule competition. This was the first comp I organized that I was competing in most of the events. I was able to set up the room for that comp the night before, so I could compete in Multi in the morning. I totally failed Multi though, which wasn't exactly a great result to start the day. I did very well in most of the other events, however (sub-10 3x3 single, 3BLD mean, sub-6 pyra average, and sub-20 OH single). I also learned an important lesson about holding Clock as an event: never hold Clock. The worst part of the competition for me was actually trying for over 15 minutes to get the certificates to print, and ultimately having to use miniature certificates because that's all the printer would make.

The Wednesday after Peach State Winter was Ash Wednesday, and my forty(-six) day journey in the cubing desert began. I didn't cube at all during Lent, so I turned my attention to other timed pursuits, such as 15 puzzle and sorting adeck of cards as fast as possible. I did sell a bunch of video games, so I would have money to buy new cubes as soon as I could.

Right after Easter I jumped right back into cubing and found I really hadn't lost any ground there, though it took a couple days to get used to how a 3x3 turns again and I've forgotten a few algs here and there. I bought a 6x6 and 7x7 and got kinda fast.
Now I have the ability to do all official events (though 5BLD is kinda iffy).

The outlook for now: I'm going to Alpharetta Open 2016 in 8 days. I told a non-cubing friend that I was going to this competition. I was talking about the different events I was competing in, and since she seemed pretty impressed by feetsolving, I declared that I would definitely break the state record for feet. So now I've got to do that or else I'm going to look really stupid. (It shouldn't be a problem though, state record is 1:35 single, 1:39 mean, and I average 1:15). I also really want to beat cutoff in 6x6 and improve my 3BLD results. I literally don't care at all about the other events.

Later this year, I am probably going to Cajun Cube Clash in June, definitely to Nationals in July, and hopefully a few more comps. I don't have any plans for the next one I organize, but some time this summer maybe?


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## gateway cuber (Oct 13, 2016)

well,
A little over 2 Years ago this kid I knew (he actually went to dixon fall with me) learned to solve the cube and I was fascinated, so slowly over about a month or so he taught beginners First 2 Layers, in another month I could solve the whole thing in around 1:00. Then my friend bought a Zhanchi and got semi-decent TPS I thought it was magical or something, so I started learning F2l then 2 look OLL then full PLL and in 2 months or so I averaged about 30 by this time I too had bought a Zhanchi. One day my friend bought a lingpo and I was even more hooked discovering there were more cubes than just a 3x3, I taught myself to solve the 2x2 a cared about nothing else for a while. Then I discover such a thing as full OLL and I thought I was MR. BIG SHOT for learning it (yes I learned full OLL when I was barely sub 30). And while I hoarded algs my friend bought a bunch of cubes (getting me more hooked) I learned to solve a few... Then I practised a lot! And finally became sub 20-ish. And then with the same kid (we do pretty much everything together) we went on a trip to florida and I learned to solve all his cubes (2-4, Pyra, skewb, Mega, Mirror Blocks, I also got My first BLD success) It was on this trip I knew I was gonna be world class on pyra (it'd be nice if one close by would actually have Pyra). After This trip my friend bought a Cubicle Aolong V2 I didn't know such magic existed! I began to focus once again on 3x3 and Improved my look-ahead a bit and got a PB single of 12.75 when I averaged about 18 (still with a Zhanchi) I thought I'd never Break that PB so I bought some cubes for myself (yupo 2x2, Moyu Pyra, weisu 4x4) but the very next week I got a 10.22 single and my average dropped even More this time to 17 secs so I decided I would continue with 3x3 (not forgetting the other events) But then Tragedy struck, My Zhanchi with over 20,000 solves, broke... I then modded my rubik's brand and used it for a while because I was broke ,then I too bought an Aolong V2. For a while I wasn't that into cubing but I still did it to some degree. Then I discovered Speedsolving And got hooked again. My averages at this point were about 2x2 5 secs 3x3 16 secs 4x4 lol pyra 5 secs BLD 10:00 when I got a success and skewb 20. I remember I had just gotten a rubik's brand 5x5 when I joined. Since then me and my friend have both practised vigorously, And I started buy a bunch of cubes like the yuhu, guansu, thunderclap, and once it came out the gts. Now after roughly 2 years I average, 2x2: 3.0 3x3: used to avg 12 but I think I'm stuck at 13 again 4x4: sub 1:10 5x5: lol Pyra 4.0 Skewb 7.2 BLD: 4:45 Squan: 40.0 everything else: bad

and then there's this


waffle=ijm said:


> Talking muffins guide the way. Told me stories of the color cube. How color cube was friendly. Hold the color cube and twist and turn said the muffin. Talking muffin guide the way. Stare into stars, talking muffin commanded. Look into sky, twisty twist color cube. Stars tell you how to twisty twist, talking muffin say. So I listen to star man and star man say how the twisty twist happens. Look down and color cube is same on all the sides. Talking muffin, clap clap his muffin hands. Star man nods at approval. Talking muffin take the color cube again and twisty twist. Star man telling me how to twist. Muffin clap clap with his muffin hands again. Star man exhales. star dust cover the color cube. Star man fly away with talking muffin. They say good bye and tell me that I twisty twist color cube all on my own. I'm scared because star man always tell me how to twisty twist. Talking muffin talks and says. Color cube is friend. color cube will be good. keep twisty twist the color cube talking muffin says because you are star man now. I believe in talking muffin, I start attending competitions for color cube. Always get into final round but not strong enough with old star man telling me how to twisty twist. In heart and in soul, still hear talking muffin even if he gone with star man and I am star man now.
> 
> Then I woke up and watched a couple of videos and learned to cube, made tutorial videos, got a bit faster at cubing, started to host a cubing podcast and here I am.


I think I just rediscovered the greatest post on any site ever....


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## Weston (Oct 16, 2016)

*2007: *

Solved cube for the first time, learned from Jessica Fridrich's Website.

*2008:*

Bought my first DIY, but it was worse than my Rubik's brand.
Entered my first competition, eliminated first round. Met "famous" cubers like Lucas Garron, Tyson Mao, Shelley Chang

*2009:*

Went to my first out of state competition in Texas to qualify for Nationals (when they had qualifications)
Met Anthony Brooks in Texas
Mid 2009: Went to US Nationals and met Kevin Hays, got eliminated in the first round of everything, except Magic.
*2010:*

Started traveling around with Anthony winning comps in the midwest when everyone was slow.
 Started taking OH seriously
Made finals in 3x3 at US Nationals at MIT,
Won my first competition in 3x3, and won 5/8 events at that competition.
*2011*:

Started winning local California comps in OH
Got OH avg NAR at US Nationals
Became OH US National Champion for the first time

*2012:*

Fail at US Nationals
*2013:*

Got third at World Championships in Vegas, under Feliks and Pleskowicz
Become OH US National Champion again
*2014:*

Buster out at US Nationals again

*2015:*

Podium at US Nationals for OH
Full step sub 10 OH single with a +2 epic fail
Later get first official sub 10 OH single

*2016:*

I get Max Park'd at US Nationals
Started cubing seriously again and practicing WC 2017


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## YouCubing (Oct 17, 2016)

YouCubing said:


> 2012: Me. I hate me. I collected about 25 different puzzles that I couldn't solve (except Pyra ofc xD)
> Mid-Jan 2015: I picked up my C4Y 3x3x5 and tried to solve it (and couldn't ofc xD) but I then decided to REALLY try to solve all my puzzles by looking at the book that I very wittingly didn't look at when I got it in 2012.
> Feb 22, 2015: Solved a 3x3 with no outside help (basically I had memorized all the algs) for the first time in ~3:36.
> Sometime in March 2015: Got my first speedcube, a Newisland Phoenix (lolty) and I searched for some comps. I saw one in Hilton Head (lolnats) but didn't think much of it because I saw Peach State 2015 (lolray) and "persuaded (it wasn't that hard)" my dad to take me.
> ...


cont.
Jul 30, 2015: got my first Georgia State record at Nats (15.90 slow clock single)
Dec 12, 2015: podiumed in two mystery events at a comp 
Mar 19, 2016: got my first official podium (2nd place in Pyra, avg of 6.08)
Jun 4, 2016: got my first official win (4.55 Pyra avg)
Jul 17, 2016: got my first top 100 in the world official result, also state record lel (15.88 squan avg)
Oct 8, 2016: got my first double podium (1st place in squan, 3rd place in clock). also broke both squan state records, the first time I've ever held two at juance. Also first top 50 in the world result (13.24 ridiculous squan avg)


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## 4Chan (Oct 17, 2016)

2007: Learn how to cube.
2008: Go to comps.
2009: Go to Big Cubes Summer and feel bad for using CFOP, so switched to the most unusual method at the time, ZB.
2010: Party way too hard during sophomore year of college, and quit cubing for Starcraft.
2015: Realise that the only thing in life that I wasn't a total failure at was cubing. Learned ZBLL all over again, this time with ZZ. Become a delegate and then do lots of comps.
2016: Switched to ZZ-CT, and started working at The Cubicle.


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## Weston (Oct 17, 2016)

4Chan said:


> 2010: Party way too hard during sophomore year of college, and *quit cubing for Starcraft.*


Those were some pretty fun times my friend.


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## asacuber (Dec 15, 2016)

~2008-2009- My mum gets me a storebought cube
July 2013: There was this guy in my school(3 years older than me) who could solve a rubik's cube. It was pretty impressive.He also taught my friend to solve a side(which was also very impressive )
August 2013- My friend solves a side of that cube during my birthday
None of this really motivated me to learn.
Nov2013- On my way to chess class my friend takes out a Rubik's Cube and solves it. I was super amazed this time 
(2 minutes seemed like superhuman xD)
Dec2013-I try and learn, my rubiks cube explodes. So my mum gets me an actual 'Rubik's' Cube.I learn with this and finally succeed. My first timed attempt was 4:40. I improve a lot and get my first sub1 single.
**I'll put the rest of it later**


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## tacgnol (Dec 15, 2016)

*2007ish - *find a rubik's cube in my uncle's basement, get almost the whole blue side
*2009 - *get a rubik's cube and learn to solve it from THE LEGENDARY DAN BROWN TUTORIAL and become color neutral. solve it at school and impress friends. go to first competition and realize i'm actually pretty bad. 
*2010 - *start to _git gud_ also get a clock for the first time*
2011 - *start to _git gudder_ and learn f2l. fall in love with clock. 
*2012 - *quit mostly because of school and life
*2016 -* get back into it and realize how much i suck
*2023 - *set clock WR.


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## pipkiksass (Dec 15, 2016)

*2000* - while living in a shack in Thailand, met a mad, pill-popping Irishman named Finbar, who had a Rubik's cube. He taught me beginner's first 2 layers, but didn't know how to solve the last layer.
*2001 *- went to uni. Bought a cube. Nearly managed to solve LL, but kept getting stuck. Plundered the (VERY limited) resources then available online (Lars Petrus page, mainly), mangled together an inefficient method which worked for me. Never focussed on speed.
*2012 *- discovered speedcubing, via YouTube and BadMephisto. Bought a Guhong 2. Went from about 90s average to about 30 seconds in a few months.
*2014 *- quit cubing.
*2016 *- got sick. Rediscovered cubing. Got globally sub-19. Discovered 4x4. Got globally sub-1:40.
*2017 *- got well. Finished learning OLL. Got globally sub-17, with a sub-10 sniggle. Got globally sub-1:15 on 4x4, with a sub-1 sniggle.


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## oneshot (Dec 18, 2016)

I've always been interested in the Rubik's cube. I'm kind of a minimalist, so I was looking for a hobby that didn't require a lot of stuff/equipment. Thought speed solving could be it. I'm older, 42, so I'm not so interested in speed, but really got into blind solving. Now I'm into MBLD, so I just ordered 20 cubes. So much for not requiring lots of stuff.


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## Douf (Dec 19, 2016)

At age 37, I saw Lucas' WR video in the media and wanted to investigate what it takes to be able to do that. Now that I at least have an idea what it takes, I'm blown away and many miles outside that realm (31 sec. PB). But I love just solving and I also discovered a love for Megaminx! So thank you Lucas for the inspiration.

Also I decided I wanted to break Phillip Espinoza's WR of 845 cubes solved while running a marathon. Still need practice obviously, plus I can't find support team that will take the whole thing seriously. On this record, has anyone else noticed that it has not yet been verified by Guinness even after Phillip reaching out several times to them? Just curious because if for some (very unfortunate) reason his attempt is nullified, that means the current record to break is only 175...
I hope it's not nullified because I've seen his footage and what Philip did is incredibly impressive.

Sorry to stray off topic. Just an older cuber new to the scene who loves the hobby and the competitiveness of it all.


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