# Cubing Fundamentals



## ThatGuy (Apr 8, 2010)

I've done a bit of thinking about sports and other skill based activities and realized that the thing separating pros and amateurs are fundamentals. Take tennis, for example. The top seeded players all have fundamentally sound strokes. When you begin learning from a teacher, they teach you how to hit correctly. In higher levels of high school tennis, the good players have better strokes than the worse player. This also applies to a game like Go . The pros say that fundamentals are what make them different from amateurs. Basically, fundamentals are the most important. So, I was thinking that this should apply to cubing also. If so, this might change how one gets better at cubing. Does cubing have fundamentals that set WR holders above sub 30s? If so, what are the fundamentals?


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## CubesOfTheWorld (Apr 8, 2010)

ThatGuy said:


> This also applies to a game like Go .



ha. I was horrible at go when I used to play it. I was like, a 17k at best....:fp

P.S to david woner: dont report me for 1 facepalm, I know that 4 was alittle excessive, but not for 1.


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## Edward (Apr 8, 2010)

Turning speed, recognition, and efficiency?


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## Anthony (Apr 8, 2010)

CubesOfTheWorld said:


> P.S to david woner: dont report me for 1 facepalm, I know that 4 was alittle excessive, but not for 1.



lol. do it. 

Anyway, I've never really thought about this before. I suppose there are basic fundamentals, but there are many different styles of cubing. Some people turn fast and have awesome look ahead, and some people's look ahead isn't too great, but they turn pretty fast at times (I'm referring to sub 13 or so cubers). However, what sets apart the sub 10 guys is the fact that they can turn insanely fast and also maintain awesome lookahead.

As for some of the basic fundamentals, I guess I agree with Edward.


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## ThatGuy (Apr 8, 2010)

Edward said:


> Turning speed, recognition, and efficiency?



turning speed would be more a skill acquired through fundamentals. Like what are the fundamentals of turning? For example, a person who in a rush does R3 instead of R' would be fundamentally wrong, etc.
i guess recognition is more intuitive rather than skill or fundamental. And what do you mean by efficiency?


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## Edward (Apr 8, 2010)

ThatGuy said:


> Edward said:
> 
> 
> > Turning speed, recognition, and efficiency?
> ...



The amount of moves, and how those moves contribute to the solve.


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## Innocence (Apr 8, 2010)

4Chan said:


> @Cubesoftheworld:
> You weren't banned for just that.
> 
> You were being ignorant and wouldn't listen to people, and posted something completely pointless.



This. Facepalms ARE there to be used, just not in the wrong way.

Good: "I had a sub-1 cross, a 6 second f2l, and then popped on the oll. :fp"

Bad: ":fp:fp:fp:fp:fp:fp:fp:fp:fp:fp:fp:fp:fp:fp:fp:fp:fp:fp"
Please don't take that out of context.


I believe that the cubing fundamentals, as equivalent to say, tight legs in gymnastics, better pedalling style/faster cadence in cycling, etc would be to turn efficiently and calmly. That's a basic physical fundamental, a basic mental one would be to turn only as fast as you can look/think ahead.


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## ThatGuy (Apr 8, 2010)

a bit more. Basically what happens to pros (like in go) is that they know the fundamentals so well that they automatically do them. So one thing i was thinking about would be knowing the orientation of your cube at all times. like: orange is facing you and you see a potential f2l pair for colors x and y. based on orange facing you you know exactly which slot the f2l pair needs to go into (make sense?)


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## cmhardw (Apr 8, 2010)

That's a really interesting question. I once dated a girl who was really into triathlons, and she spent quite a bit of time perfecting every aspect of her performance. She once told me that I should practice things in stages, even if it was as simple as putting down the cube and stopping the timer at the end of the solve, or picking up the cube and applying my first turns.

I guess a fundamental that separates a pro from a novice is algorithm knowledge and intuition for block building. You have to be able to know lots of algs to make "bad" cases into "good" cases. Also you need to be able to intuitively improv a solution to a block on the fly rather than robotically always do cross; pair 1; pair 2 for Fridrich, etc.

Also a fundamental would be prepping a good cube, as well as knowing when to abandon a good cube as worn out, so basically good equipment and equipment maintenance skills.

Wow... That' s a really good question I'd like to think on this myself.

Chris


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## ThatGuy (Apr 8, 2010)

guys i'm trying to have a serious discussion because i want to get better so could you all please just drop the facepalming?

anyway. . a fundamental for turning would be like: (X is the face) use only X, X2, or X' no matter the circumstance. even if it takes and extra few moments at first think before you turn. ex. f2l turning Us. you just finish a pair and you begin looking for the next one. you do a U, find a pair, and do U' because the pair you found only works in the original orientation. that would be bad-not following the fundamentals. Another question to sub 15ers: how often do you do those kinds of turns as opposed to earlier when you were slower? like does it actually matter whether or not your turns follow the fundamental(the one i just put down)?


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## JTW2007 (Apr 8, 2010)

I've thought about this in the past, and haven't found that cubing generally parallels anything else in this manner, but if I were to pick some things out, I would say:

-Intuition (as in being able to see in your head what will happen to different pieces when moves are applied)
-Suppressing Motor Attention
-While I need to work on this myself, I think that having a sound knowledge of the theory behind why the things you do work would be very helpful, not necessarily as a practical tool, but as a way to become more familiar and confident with your method.



ThatGuy said:


> Another question to sub 15ers: how often do you do those kinds of turns as opposed to earlier when you were slower?



Uh... actually more now than when I was in the 20s-30s. I should work on that.


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## JL58 (Apr 8, 2010)

I completely agree that the top players at any skill game/sport have something unique.

Tennis, baseball, car racing, etc. all champions have some unique skills that cannot be replicated without DNA changeover. 

At cubing I thing this comes down to 3 things:
- memory (confidence at executing one of the x00's algs learned in stressful situation like competition). That works up to a point. I don't think this will make any difference below 15 seconds since most of the sub 15 have already proven they have little memory limitation.
- dexterity: looking at so many video I realized that moving precisely is very important, using your left hand (even for U' and F' only) in a completely synchronized way is critical. Pianists should have an advantage. Yet I am the proof that it is not enough. There must be a gene related to cube speed. By the way has anyone looked at the correlation between top cubers and their PLL attack times? This should tell us if dexterity is a discriminating factor for the top 10 or 20.
- parallel visualization: that's the one closest to a right brain skill. Being able to anticipate the move of multiple parts independently when fingers are moving at 6-8 tps during the first part (mostly F2L) is essential. Left handed tennis players have an advantage beyond rational statistics. Right brain musicians are the most prolific (Sting went through a CT-scan to show how his brain functionality was unique). I absolutely believe that this is a main characteristic that makes the difference. 

Yes, final OLL/PLL and tons of luck (not crime) to get a skip will help. But I think it is secondary.


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## Drax (Apr 8, 2010)

Patience, determination and hard work.
As with everything else in life


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## stinkocheeze (Apr 8, 2010)

ThatGuy said:


> guys i'm trying to have a serious discussion because i want to get better so could you all please just drop the facepalming?
> 
> anyway. . a fundamental for turning would be like: (X is the face) use only X, X2, or X' no matter the circumstance. even if it takes and extra few moments at first think before you turn. ex. f2l turning Us. you just finish a pair and you begin looking for the next one. you do a U, find a pair, and do U' because the pair you found only works in the original orientation. that would be bad-not following the fundamentals. Another question to sub 15ers: how often do you do those kinds of turns as opposed to earlier when you were slower? like does it actually matter whether or not your turns follow the fundamental(the one i just put down)?



For Pro's, It's not all algorithm's and doing it from muscle memories. You have to have a quick mind. You also have to really really know what is happening when your applying the algorithm, not just letters. 

While your solving, they see things like: 
-I could use this technique from another method
-I could insert this f2l pair in a certain way so that it will cause this to happen.
-Hey, When i do this part of the cross, I will get a f2l pair connected
-Hey, I see a f2l pair, I will try and preserve it while doing cross

ect.


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## Lars Petrus (Apr 8, 2010)

ThatGuy said:


> I've done a bit of thinking about sports and other skill based activities and realized that the thing separating pros and amateurs are fundamentals. Take tennis, for example. The top seeded players all have fundamentally sound strokes. When you begin learning from a teacher, they teach you how to hit correctly. In higher levels of high school tennis, the good players have better strokes than the worse player. This also applies to a game like Go . The pros say that fundamentals are what make them different from amateurs. Basically, fundamentals are the most important. So, I was thinking that this should apply to cubing also. If so, this might change how one gets better at cubing. Does cubing have fundamentals that set WR holders above sub 30s? If so, what are the fundamentals?



Those are some very good questions. But I think it's way too early to ask them for cubing. 

There are no cubing pros. There are even less professional trainers. Records are still improving very fast. The fundamentals are still in the process of being discovered, and no one knows what they will be. Give it another 10 years!


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## Innocence (Apr 8, 2010)

Lars Petrus said:


> There are no cubing pros. There are even less professional trainers.



There's a negative number of professional trainers?


I see where you're coming from, but are we that primitive in our sport? Surely we won't get to a point where the 3x3x3 times are 1.xx in competitive scenes.

We must have some form of fundamentals by now, it's just a question of what they are.


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## Dene (Apr 8, 2010)

Lars Petrus said:


> Those are some very good questions. But I think it's way too early to ask them for cubing.
> 
> There are no cubing pros. There are even less professional trainers. Records are still improving very fast. The fundamentals are still in the process of being discovered, and no one knows what they will be. Give it another 10 years!



I was about to say exactly this. At this stage of cubing, we have no idea what the fundamentals might be. At this stage all it takes to be the best is a lot of practise.


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## Gaétan Guimond (Apr 8, 2010)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2UiUDklVP8 

Pros or amateurs ???

The cube is a puzzle where the genius of the teenager's suffice to reach world records. I never said that it was not for children or adults because human curiosity has no age. 

Le monde semble voir les meilleurs que par le chronomètre mais il a tord. Le journaliste est un amateur puisqu'il ne demande pas au contestant qui a inventé la méthode, il ne sait rien ou presque parce qu'il est généralement mal informer car les questions sont préparés à l'avance. Le journaliste du sport connait le tennis et le baseball, une grande différence. Le cube est dispersé sinon mon nom serait connu aux USA et davantage. 


Le coin ou le 2x2x2 est le coeur de chacun des cubes. L'amateur ne sait pas que nous n'avons pas besoin de plus de mouvement pour solutionner les coins du plus petit au plus gros cube. Je n'ai vu aucun site qui explique la vraie valeur du coin. 
.....................................................................

The cube popularity took a dive after hungary budapest championship of the world in 1982. The return in competition after 21 years was the world championship in toronto canada in 2003. Exactly had the same place at the science fair my web page photo that I placed on my web site that I took on the national championship of 1982.

The name of my domain rubikscuberecord.com and I'm the only one to have solved the cube blindfolded. If you don't believe in the one that has brought back the cube you will have to answer to the irreversables evidence. Contrary to it's return in 2003 in the store where the cube sales were influenced by the championship wich was not the case in 1982.

The cube is'nt musical (method & math) partition exchange only but it's has competitive. 

Sound of silent


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## JTW2007 (Apr 8, 2010)

JL58 said:


> most of the sub 15 have already proven they have little memory limitation.]



I know that it takes (probably significantly) less than 28 algorithms to be pretty consistently sub-15. I think you are placing to much emphasis on knowing algs.


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## JL58 (Apr 8, 2010)

@ JTW2007: Fair enough. I would argue that you have to be pretty good at lookahead and dexterity to be sub-15 with just intuitive F2L, 21 PLL +7 OLL algs, don't you think?


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## Kirjava (Apr 8, 2010)

I bet it's possible to be sub-15 with just niklas and sune.

EDIT; Holy crap, it is. 12.85, 17.39, 12.74, (20.35), (12.59) = 14.32 avg5 with niklas and sune as the only algs.


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## Lars Petrus (Apr 8, 2010)

Innocence said:


> Lars Petrus said:
> 
> 
> > There are no cubing pros. There are even less professional trainers.
> ...



Well, OK, things aren't quite that bad  What I was thinking was that any trainers are even less professional than the elite cubers themselves, but that's not what I wrote...

The top people in this sport now are pretty much self taught teenagers. If you look at other skill based fields like sports or "the arts", people with that background *can* occasionally make an impact, but they're at a huge disadvantage against those who have been competently trained from a young age.



Innocence said:


> I see where you're coming from, but are we that primitive in our sport? Surely we won't get to a point where the 3x3x3 times are 1.xx in competitive scenes.



The usual consensus is that 20% under the current world record is the limit of human capability. This has consistently been proven wrong after a few years. I long ago gave up trying to predict...



Innocence said:


> We must have some form of fundamentals by now, it's just a question of what they are.



Well, of course there are important things you can learn. But the term "fundamentals" for me belong to much more settled fields. Maybe we just disagree about terminology.


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## miniGOINGS (Apr 8, 2010)

Kirjava said:


> I bet it's possible to be sub-15 with just niklas and sune.
> 
> EDIT; Holy crap, it is. 12.85, 17.39, 12.74, (20.35), (12.59) = 14.32 avg5 with niklas and sune as the only algs.



But you're just insane... Did you use Roux, or LBL, with Niklas and Sune?


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## Kirjava (Apr 9, 2010)

rewks


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## Lars Petrus (Apr 10, 2010)

Kirjava said:


> I bet it's possible to be sub-15 with just niklas and sune.
> 
> EDIT; Holy crap, it is. 12.85, 17.39, 12.74, (20.35), (12.59) = 14.32 avg5 with niklas and sune as the only algs.



Knowing lots of LL algs only cuts down your move count, probably not by more than 10 moves on average. Or 20 at the very most if you *only* do Niklas and Sune. That's not much time at full speed.


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## Kirjava (Apr 10, 2010)

Yarp. I wanted to see if it was possible so I can cite it the next time someone asks if you need to learn full OLL to be sub20. ^_^


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## JTW2007 (Apr 10, 2010)

Wow Kirjava. That's pretty grand.

My best is sub-15 avg. 5 with sune, T-Perm, and U-Perm.


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