# Hand Neutrality?



## Carson (Dec 19, 2008)

With all the talk about color neutrality, I thought I would try to get some opinions on "hand neutrality."

Although I rarely touch a musical instrument anymore, I played drums in groups, marching bands, etc for in total for about 15 years. One of the age old rules that the majority of my instructors beat into my head on a daily basis was hand neutrality. "If you can play something right hand lead, then you better be able to play it left hand lead as well." There is a lot of logic in this.

Some time ago, I started applying this to cubing as well. I believe it first occured to me when I was learning the OLL's for 4LLL. I had learned the SUNE and was getting ready to learn the ANTI-SUNE when it suddenly hit me: This is just a mirror of the other algorithm... sooooo why does the ANTI-SUNE algorithm look so much different from the SUNE algorithm? After 3-4 seconds of intense concentration, I realized that it was so that the algorithm would be optimized for the right hand. The "drummer" in me immediately kicked in and said, "That doesn't make any sense... someone's left hand isn't as good so they just do everything with the right hand? Why not just make your left hand better?" I actually do see the logic for optimizing things for the right hand, for most people there is a significant desprepitancy between left/right hand strength and dexterity, but for those of us who have experience with various activities that promote use of the off hand (and those who are blessed to be ambidextrous naturally, which I'm sad to say I am not) why should we learn these extra algorithms.

As an experiment, I learned the ANTI-SUNE as a mirror of the SUNE. I am not a particulary fast cuber yet, so neither of these algos is especially fast... but there execution seems pretty even to me. Since I had pretty good luck with this, I decided to apply it to the PLL's as I learned them as well. I had already learned the U's as written, so I didn't worry about relearning them, but so far I have learned the A's, J's, and R's as mirrors and am very satisfied with the results. 

Has anyone else tried this, and if so, what kind of results have you had? Are you glad you did it this way, or do you wish you had just gone "traditional?"


----------



## brunson (Dec 19, 2008)

I started with OLL's the same way you did, mirroring into my left hand and being "hand neutral" (I think ambidextrous would be a good word for that). I think it's served me pretty well, especially since I do OH with my right hand, knowing the mirrors of a lot of RH dominant algorithms helps a lot and being able to mirror (simple) algs in my head is useful also.

I'm not particularly fast either, but more and more lately I'm choosing more RH dominant algorithms for two reasons. 1) I'm not truly ambidextrous in real life and my right hand is simply more coordinated and faster, 2) I've started noticing the time it takes to change grip, even if my hands don't need to reposition. For example, when I'm deciding whether I need to to a CW A-perm with my right hand or a CCW with my left, it takes a split second for me to grab with the correct hand and get ready to turn with the other.

However, I just noticed another advantage of being cube ambidextrous while I was observing my A-perms. When I decided to start learning PLLs from a second orientation, it was much easier to simply mirror things like a T or a Y into my left hand, avoiding a cube rotation or two AUFs.

Meanwhile, just like you I learned Sune with my right hand and then my left, however with doing more OH and trying to avoid AUF's I've gone ahead and learned Anti-Sune, but I've learned it with both hands.


----------



## patrickpoako1 (Dec 19, 2008)

you actually brought up a good topic although the reason for not being hand neutral is fairly obvious.
some may not have the dexterity to be hand neutral.and sometimes when you're so use to being right-handed,youre LL looks are base on you're right hand. so when you look for something you actually look for it using your right hand as your guide. what i mean about this is you look for pairs,colors etc base on what you have learned using you're right hand. so even though you don't learn new algos, you are actually trying to adapt your LL looks to being neutral as well.
that is probably the main reason why most people will stick with their dominant hand.i myself am not a fast cuber enough PB is 18 sub-25 ave. i can use both hands in executing algos but i would prefer doing it right-handed because i always tend to look for pairs adapted for my right hand. also, doing it with your dominant hand will make it faster for you.
sure, you can always train both hands but there is a limit to your offhand. your dominant hand will always be faster. when you're "speedcubing" you go with the "speedy" hand. that's why you see algos slightly longer compared to doing it with your other hand but the thing is it is actually faster in execution.
for example take the f2l (RUR'U" *3). try doing it with your left hand mirrored you'll notice that when you reach your limit, your right hand will always be faster than your left hand if you're right-handed.
hand neutrality is really a thing of the past as what pioneer speedcubers would say. speedcubing is now a matter of doing it with ease, comfort and speed.
thanks!!


----------



## joey (Dec 19, 2008)

I can pretty much do most of my algs with either hand. Although, not always as fast. Rama is equally as fast with both, it's crazy!


----------



## mrbiggs (Dec 19, 2008)

Your right hand is better, that's why you're called right-handed. This isn't a pass-fail task like drumming--in other words, doing a certain drum beat only requires moving at a certain speed, which you can attain by practice. In cubing, you're going as fast as possible, and you're going to have more success faster if you optimize your algorithms to take advantage of your dominant hand.

Also, I know that they drill that into you as an ideal, but having played a fair amount of piano, I think it would be unfair to classify most good pianists as entirely ambidextrous. They can play some incredible things with their left hands, but if you give them a certain piece of music, odds are that they'll play it faster, clearer, and learn the music faster if they use their right hand.


----------



## shelley (Dec 19, 2008)

I play the violin. My left and right hands are doing entirely different things.

If I had hand neutrality (ambidexterity) in cubing I wouldn't be solving cross on left. Aside from L face turns and U', all my left hand really does is hold the cube.

I do OH cubing with my left hand, but that's because my regular algorithms are optimized for right hand, and it's easier to do R turns holding the cube in the left hand.


----------



## patrickpoako1 (Dec 19, 2008)

hi joey! nice seeing you here.
it seems that because you're cubing that much i'm assuming that you can do it both ways.
i'm also assuming that some of the times you're having difficulty with doing it from both hands.
i'm not gifted but i think that practice would make it better for me. ^_^


----------



## fanwuq (Dec 19, 2008)

I was not ambidextrous at all when I started cubing, but for the last 2 weeks, I've really concentrated on hand neutrality. I'm practicing my bad R perm, T perm, U perm, and sunes with left hand. It does feel a bit awkward, but I'm getting better at it. The weird thing is not that my left hand is slower than my right, it just that I do different grips and have different turning styles. I'm learning all my MGLS 2gen algs as LR mirrors right now, but For LUR algs, I still try to make R more dominant that L. One of my biggest trouble is that I can't U2' with a left handed double trigger very well, I end up losing my grip and it is really sloppy, but the mirror movement with right hand is very easy.
So far my biggest Left hand accomplishment is a 1.65 left hand T perm, I did it right hand right afterwards and it was 1.45, so the difference is shrinking...


----------



## Vulosity (Dec 19, 2008)

I play the viola and my left hand is just as great as my right (dominant) and.

My J, A, R, and N Perms are just mirrors of each other.

If my right hand is dominant in cubing, is it normal for me to write with my left hand?


----------



## JLarsen (Dec 19, 2008)

Vulosity said:


> I play the viola and my left hand is just as great as my right (dominant) and.
> 
> My J, A, R, and N Perms are just mirrors of each other.
> 
> If my right hand is dominant in cubing, is it normal for me to write with my left hand?



I'm sure that's just a result of there being an abundunce of RH algs out there, seeing how the majority of people are right handed. Me being one of them.


----------



## Dene (Dec 19, 2008)

patrickpoako1 said:


> you actually brought up a good topic although the reason for not being hand neutral is fairly obvious.
> some may not have the dexterity to be hand neutral.and sometimes when you're so use to being right-handed,youre LL looks are base on you're right hand. so when you look for something you actually look for it using your right hand as your guide. what i mean about this is you look for pairs,colors etc base on what you have learned using you're right hand. so even though you don't learn new algos, you are actually trying to adapt your LL looks to being neutral as well.
> also, doing it with your dominant hand will make it faster for you.
> sure, you can always train both hands but there is a limit to your offhand. your dominant hand will always be faster. when you're "speedcubing" you go with the "speedy" hand. that's why you see algos slightly longer compared to doing it with your other hand but the thing is it is actually faster in execution.
> hand neutrality is really a thing of the past as what pioneer speedcubers would say.



I disagree. I'm technically right handed, and I have more RH algorithms, but I do mirror a lot of them. However for the F2L I almost completely use my left hand nowadays.
I disagree that your dominant hand will always be faster - whichever hand you practice with will be faster.
As for hand neutrality being a thing of the past - no way.


----------



## watermelon (Dec 19, 2008)

Here's a similar thread: http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1547


----------



## patrickpoako1 (Dec 19, 2008)

Dene said:


> patrickpoako1 said:
> 
> 
> > you actually brought up a good topic although the reason for not being hand neutral is fairly obvious.
> ...



if it works for you then stick with it.


----------



## MTGjumper (Dec 20, 2008)

I'm an ambidextrous cuber, with pretty similar turning speeds with both left and right hands. An advantage of being ambidextrous is being able to perform algs that are normally on your right side on your left (for example, a T perm on the left side, without having to do U2 T Perm U2).


----------



## toast (Dec 20, 2008)

I try to train my left hand, but I can't control it as well as when I didn't have carpal tunnel. My U, J, R, N, T(Yes, T.), G's, and a third of the OLL's I know are mirrors.


----------



## somerandomkidmike (Dec 20, 2008)

My method does not require hand neutrality, so I don't use my left hand very much for turning. I use my left ring finger to flick the M layer, and to provide stability. For my method, hand neutrality would be useless.


----------



## enigmahack (Dec 20, 2008)

Carson said:


> With all the talk about color neutrality, I thought I would try to get some opinions on "hand neutrality."
> 
> Although I rarely touch a musical instrument anymore, I played drums in groups, marching bands, etc for in total for about 15 years. One of the age old rules that the majority of my instructors beat into my head on a daily basis was hand neutrality. "If you can play something right hand lead, then you better be able to play it left hand lead as well." There is a lot of logic in this.
> 
> ...




I too am a musician, and have played several instruments but the main ones are classical/jazz piano, electric guitar, and Drums as well. 

I'm naturally pretty ambidextrous anyway as well, but when it comes to cubing, all of my algs are bi-directional. (The T Perm for example, I can execute pretty equally as fast on both hands)

This HUGELY helps me with my F2L, though my average right now is still 22 seconds roughly. 

I'm bi-color cross, ambidextrous cuber lol. 

That being said, my OH average is around 37 seconds with my left hand and over a minute with my Right hand. (I think this is simply practice though)

I just feel more comfortable with precision movements with rounded hand shapes, I expect from playing guitar. (There is a similar hand shape that feels VERY familiar when solving the cube with my left hand, and I play a regular right-handed style guitar)

Weird!


----------



## blah (Dec 20, 2008)

Why does everyone only talk about mirroring algs across the M-plane (I like to call these L/R mirrors)? For the non-ambidextrous, mirroring across the S-plane (F/B mirrors) doesn't require you to learn anything new either. _And_ you're still doing it with your dominant hand. It's the same logic for doing cross on left.

I can easily mirror all my PLLs across the S-plane, but for some I just prefer doing the inverse.

E.g. You only need to learn one of the 4 U perms (more specifically, the RU 2-gen 11-move ones), the rest would just be its inverse, its F/B mirror, and its F/B mirror's inverse. Same goes for G perms. Same goes for Sunes. I do the F/B mirrors for my R perms and N perms, and I didn't have to learn anything new.

By the way, for those who don't "understand" Sune, it's really just as simple as taking the corner-edge pair in the FR slot out and re-inserting it. Once you know this, you can easily do all 8 Sunes from all 8 directions without thinking.


----------



## Escher (Dec 20, 2008)

im most certainly NOT an ambidextrous cuber. 

even though i play guitar as a righty, where my LH is the 'business end', i find it to be far less controlled than my RH. i used to try and combat this/be lazy and mirror my PLLs, but i just realised that they were far slower. i realised the error in my ways and learnt 4 or 5 more PLLs. 

i practice doing my f2l as two-gen as possible, and having awareness of as many f2l pieces as i can specifically so that if i DO have to use my LH, its for as few moves as possible.

i think if you start off relatively hand neutral, its a very good thing to practice, but if you cant get to grips with it, its a much better idea to practice other things


----------



## yurivish (Dec 20, 2008)

Escher said:


> i think if you start off relatively hand neutral, its a very good thing to practice, but if you cant get to grips with it, its a much better idea to practice other things



lol pun

Also, for ZZ you might want to start practicing again – unless you're doing ZZLL, you'll be filling both sides of the F2L at once, as you spot pairs and pieces, and you'll need a healthy amount of L-based fingertricks. I was totally terrible at them, but I've gotten passable at them. I'm trying to become even better, so I occasionally practice mirrored PLL's. It's slow, but there is improvement.


----------



## Escher (Dec 20, 2008)

nah, you can do the RH side of the f2l, then do a Z turn and keep on doing it RU to fill in the previously LH side 
thats what i do anyway. it takes a while to get used to putting in pairs on the top, but its SO fast sometimes...

atm, the only part of my ZZ solves that arent two gen are most of the PLLs and EOLine


----------

