# Hand Symmetric Cubing



## LeighzerCuber (Dec 6, 2011)

I was wondering what styles you people use for 2H Solving.

Do some people try to use their left hand as much as their right? 
Or do some people (as seen especially with bigger cubes) use a dominant recessive hand style?
And finally, is one style more advantageous than the other?

My 2h style


Spoiler



I, myself, use predominantly my right hand when solving with my left almost always holding most the cube (I do this for ever cube). 

This affects me in a way that I can hardly do the U2' finger trick with my left, but I can do it very easily with my right, my right hand is way more muscular and veiny than my left, and certain algorithms just don't work for me. 

It also affects me by having great algorithms to use that work with my right, I can execute faster and faster with my right, and I can perform "finger tricky" stuff with my right instead of the standard way of performing an alg or intuitive mores with both hands.



Feel free to elaborate on your situation, what you think is advantageous and why, and if you would want to change your style of cubing to [insert desired style here] for [insert reason here]

DISCLAIMER:
(I am pretty sure no one has posted this)


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## Cubenovice (Dec 6, 2011)

Predominantly right handed but offcourse will also use left during F2L.

In casual solving I do most PLL algs both left and righthanded (exept V and F perm).
My lefty U-perm is better then my right hand one...


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## teller (Dec 6, 2011)

My right hand is definitely dominant and faster, but I have forced myself to do most left handed mirrors (particularly CFOP F2L) over the years on general principle. Often the lefty version of an alg comes out gripped differently...that's not important. Important is to be able to blast it out of the water without doing something wacky like a y2, which I've seen world-class cubers doing and I'm like "whaaaa?!"


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## 5BLD (Dec 6, 2011)

I prefer one hand over the other when using roux simply because you have to grip the cube with one hand at least. In roux it's very free at the start but then goes straight into RrUM which is done by many right hand wrist turns and left hand M turns, but is predominantly right.

So for the same reasons as you I find U2' hard but I can do it now in solves and do do it.

I also find it hard because people do U2' with gripping the left hand with ring and little finger and thumb. But I use lots of M moves which are done with my left ring finger... So my way of doing U2' is to reach over with my left fingers to do it.

However! In CFOP I use both equally! I can kind grip the M slice in this to support the cube.


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## JianhanC (Dec 6, 2011)

I am left dominant but I feel uncomfortable when doing <L, U> heavy algs like T-perm on left and stuff. I suppose I got used to R and U when I started cubing.


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## Lucas Garron (Dec 6, 2011)

LeighzerCuber said:


> DISCLAIMER:
> (I am pretty sure no one has posted this)


You are pretty false. Even if we discount all the threads about which OH hand to use, a search for "left hand" still gets a lot of results.
Doesn't mean this thread was a bad idea, though.

I think I could benefit a lot from my left hand being better. In addition, there are some things my right hand can't handle (despite doing most of the turning), like F turns with an index finger push on URF.


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## Skullush (Dec 6, 2011)

When I first started cubing I learned Dan Brown method (lol) and I found that if I flipped the cube over, R' D' R D would essentially become L' U' L U, the sexy lefty move. So I used that...like a lot. For a while my left hand was stronger, even though I'm right-handed.
Now my hands are just about equal. I mirror a lot of my OLLs.


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## TimMc (Dec 6, 2011)

I use both hands. A cube in each hand, with different scrambles. Syncing the CFOP steps.

OH topic disappoint. :-(

Tim.


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## DRAGON_RYU (Dec 6, 2011)

Almost no use of left hand even though I write and eat with left.
Only use it in some mirror algs and some others that have some L's.
Couldn't do U'2 before but tried hard and can do it now somehow....
I broke my left hand once.....
and i could only use it for holding the cube....
before that I averaged 25...
My times increased to around 29~30.....
and realized that the left hand is really doing nothing.....


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## InTheFade (Dec 6, 2011)

I'm left-handed, but I learned right-handed algorithms when I began cubing since most of the beginner tutorials around assume you're right-handed. As I progressed, I mirrored algorithms that felt awkward to execute with my right hand. As a result, my execution is split around 60/40 between my left and right hand respectively (I am still definitely left-dominant though, not fully ambidextrous). This is really handy for mirrored OLLs and PLLs, since I don't really have to learn 2 algorithms, I just memorise 1 and mirror it and it usually takes very little effort for me to learn.

I could do a U2' from very early on (because I'm left-handed, duh), but a right-handed U2 flick took a loooong time for me to get right, and it's still much worse than my U2'. But it's pretty much essential to learn for the M2' H-perm, so I practiced and practiced until I could do it fast. I imagine most righties had to learn to do an M2' with their left hand, so it balances out.

It's handy as you become more advanced to know how to solve cases from different angles and this means using your left hand. Obviously this is very important in F2L, but it can be applied to OLLs and PLLs too. Probably the best thing you can do (imo) is learn to execute all the major trigger mirrors with your left hand.


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## deathbypapercutz (Dec 6, 2011)

despite being left-handed in most things (writin, ballin, wipin, etc.), I'm an overwhelmingly right-handed cuber. Guess I started learning righty algs from the start and just never looked back. I can't do a U2'. I can't do F2L pairs on the left. If I really need to do a pair on the left during a solve, I'll do a y2 so that I can do it on the right, or do a z and do it with cross on left. It's a sad story...

I've been working on this a little bit, but with not much progress. For now my goal is to make it second nature to do really obvious things like L' U' L instead of y2 R' U' R.


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## irontwig (Dec 6, 2011)

I use both hands, but I use my left more often during F2L and right more during LL.


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## Schmidt (Dec 6, 2011)

For OLL I use left a lot. When I was learning full OLL,with mirror cases, I would find the alg that was best for my right hand and just mirror that to left( big and small lightning, akwards, the P ones...) and some PLL's (Y T the other J N R U and A) I have never tried G V F with left.


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## Cool Frog (Dec 6, 2011)

I seem to have trouble with my left hand...

I also can't D2 to save my life. I need to work on both of these things to improve meh BLD Skills.

Seriously... D2 is the curse of comms.


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## Schmidt (Dec 6, 2011)

D2 is easy D2' is hard


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## xabu1 (Dec 6, 2011)

I am not really sure if I prefer one hand
I use them for different things

I use mainly left hand for first block
mainly right for 2nd block
I use alot of mirrors, so depends on case, about even I would guess for CmLL
I use left for U and right for M in LSE


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## emolover (Dec 6, 2011)

I am mostly right handed when cubing. For OLL and PLL I almost all the time use right hand algs but during f2l I don'tind doing left handed stuff. 

I have noticed lately I use my left index alot for both U and U'.


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## Cheese11 (Dec 7, 2011)

deathbypapercutz said:


> despite being left-handed in most things (writin, ballin, *wipin*, etc.), I'm an overwhelmingly right-handed cuber. Guess I started learning righty algs from the start and just never looked back. I can't do a U2'. I can't do F2L pairs on the left. If I really need to do a pair on the left during a solve, I'll do a y2 so that I can do it on the right, or do a z and do it with cross on left. It's a sad story...
> 
> I've been working on this a little bit, but with not much progress. For now my goal is to make it second nature to do really obvious things like L' U' L instead of y2 R' U' R.


 
lololol

But what you need to do, is do everything with your left hand, not your right. (Cubing wise)


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## collinbxyz (Dec 7, 2011)

I use right hand slightly more than my left
Like a 60% right 40% left

I think we should test tps for left hand compared to right hand by doing sexy (R U R' U' x6) and left-sexy (L' U' L U x6) and time yourself to see the difference. 
I'll go:

Right ao5 sexy x6: 1.70, 1.81, (2.08), (1.53), 1.65 = 1.72 average
Left ao5 sexy x6: (2.00), (2.26), 2.19, 2.02, 2.19 = 2.13 average

Rounded to the closes .25, it's 1.75:2.25, so this is _about_ a 7:9 ratio of right:left hands


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## Jaycee (Dec 7, 2011)

On Collin's idea :

Lefty Sexy*6 Ao5 : 3.33, 3.20, 3.27, 2.88, 3.02 = 3.16 Average and now my hand feels weird because I've never done that before. xD
Righty Sexy*6 Ao5 : 1.99, 2.17, 2.17, 1.92, 1.85 = 2.03 Average


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## TheMachanga (Dec 7, 2011)

I'm left handed, and I'm right hand dominant cubing wise. 

I still do some left handed f2l when needed, and used to do anti-sune with left hand before I learned that anti sune can be done with right hand by just doing sune backwards. 

My left handed R perm doesn't use L's but r and r' 's


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## Cool Frog (Dec 7, 2011)

2.02, 3.00, 2.96, 2.79, 2.63 = 2.79 
Left

2.19, 2.58, 2.46, 1.96, 2.68=2.41
Right


I have trouble with D2 and D2'


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## emolover (Dec 7, 2011)

I was doing some left and right sexies earlier and was averaging 1.2ish for right handed and 2.6ish for left handed... Got I suck at L.


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## immortalchaos29 (Dec 7, 2011)

I am really jealous of ambidextrous cubers. 

Right sexy: 2.55
Left: 4.20

desperately need to get better at both though. ><


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## tx789 (Dec 7, 2011)

I'm left handed and use right handbut f2l has a lot of l turns. LL is right mostly


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## Skullush (Dec 7, 2011)

Left: 2.44
Right: 2.44

O_O
I'm not even kidding.


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## DaKrazedKyubizt (Dec 7, 2011)

2H: Right-hand dominant, but working on adding more ambidexterity. For F2L, I definitely use a good amount of left-hand during solves, but finger tricks aren't as smooth. They haven't been improving much recently, probably because I need to do more slow solves to solidify my left-handed finger tricks. For LL, I just recently began trying to relearn all my OLLs and PLLs in my left hand. I already have some of them down. I have two of the G-perms down left-handed (the ones that start with R2, or in this case, L2), which is actually proving VERY useful in some solves, even though I haven't perfected them. I haven't bothered with the other two since they wouldn't be quite as useful. I'm also learning to do F2LL left-handed... and right-handed for that matter. I don't know all the algorithms yet. 

If anyone cares to know:

For OH, I use both hands, but my left-hand does a better job. I've always used my left hand, but I started using my right hand about half a year ago. It's improved a ton. I average 19-21 with left hand, and 25-30 with my right hand. (For right hand, I usually start around 25, then my hand gets tired, which results in 30-second solves...)

LH OH has actually helped my cubing overall in terms of equalizing hand strength. In terms of finger tricks, it's mainly helped with the right index finger push-back U' (finger moves from FRU to RUB), which I use for left-handed F-perms and a few other things.

What's really cool is when you find out how many little things you do unintentionally right-handed when learning to do LL algorithms left-handed. You don't even realize where your fingers are moving, which is why some algorithms fail the first several times left-handed, for example, [r U r'][R U R' U'][r U' r']. I was learning how to do this algorithms left-handed earlier today. I couldn't figure out what was going wrong until i compared it with my right-hand version. I kept trying to just tilt my fingertips back out of the way at first, but it turns out, I actually lift and move my fingers in the back completely out of the way of the middle layer in my right-handed version of the OLL, but I didn't even realize it at the time.... Idk, at least I thought it was pretty cool. Like, straight up, my left-hand is so ridiculously uncoordinated. It's so fascinating.


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## Dacuba (Dec 7, 2011)

I'm surprised that there are people havng trouble with D2 and D2'. I do them both with a ring-middle finger double trigger, and they are as fast as my U2 and U2'


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## SenileGenXer (May 24, 2012)

Cross and F2L all ambidextrous. Super ambidextrous. Whatever I need to do with whatever hand needs to do it. Feels very good and I'm awesome at f2l. It's a joy.

My OLL and PLL pretty traditional with some god moves. The traditional part is my problem. Right handed and finger tricking aren't working well for me. I'm too right dominant. It's fast and strong but if the right hand is the driver turning the right side it also wants to turn the up face - the back face -the front- face- the down primes. The left hand is mostly holding the cube and getting out of the way. If I try to get the left doing the up or back or front face while the right is the driver I end up not coordinating well.

One handed is right because it knows the moves. I can do OH left for the first two layers but I get to last layer the left hand doesn't know enough to complete.

I want to add more left handed stuff. Left handed algs and ambidextrous god moves feel very good. If my left hand is the driver the right can coordinate with it well and do the up, down, back, front, right. Some stuff I've taught myself to do with either hand. Back when I was 4-look last layer I got some speed by teaching my self to do either u-perm with either hand. Wherever hand the u-perm fell closest to that hand gets to do it in whatever direction it needs to be solved. I still have that. The right is just stronger and can do it with a middle flip involved. My A-perm b is a left handed mirror of a right handed A-perm a. It's great to put the headlights in back and move them to wherever side they need to go. It felt like I didn't have to learn a new alg. I'm looking for a similar system for G's and R-s. Put the headlights in back and do whatever you need to do with whatever hand. It would mean you would have one alg and it's mirror for the R's and two algs and their mirrors for G's.

Is there a good place to see a left handed cuber who is also a good teacher and his algs? Is there a left handed bad mephisto?


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## Joël (May 24, 2012)

I am right handed. I do OHwith left hand.

For 2H, there are just some things the left hand is good at, and some things the right hand is good at. Finding good fingertricks is usually about finding a way to let the two hands cooperate, and let them do what they are good at. As a result, there are some algorithms I actually prefer to do with LU moves, like sunes (but this is mainly because it involves some moves with the right hand that the left hand can't do.. Like pushing U' with right index and U2). Also, my left R perm is faster then my right R perm. Some algs, I just don't like with left, like F' L' U' L U L' U' L U F. For those, I usually try to find a nice way to let the right hand do more work, in this case b' U'R'UR U'R'UR b.

Anyway, I am definately not ambidexterous, and my right hand is dominant.


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## cubersmith (May 24, 2012)

My right is still dominant over my left, but I think I'm starting to use my left hand more.


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## already1329 (May 24, 2012)

I'm left handed, but I mostly use my right hand. I'm very slow with my left hand.


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## MattMcConaha (May 24, 2012)

Right hand is dominant in a solve for me, but since I'm too lazy to learn algs there are a lot of mirrors where I end up using my left.
During F2L, anything goes. Neither is dominant. But during OLL and PLL I prefer when I get the right handers.

Also, I do OH left handed.


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## Iggy (May 25, 2012)

It really depends. On 3x3, I use my right hand more but use my left for M2s and sometimes U2s. For 4x4 center-solving, I automatically use my left hand more for some reason. Most algs I use are right-handed though.


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## ThtDarnNeighbor (May 26, 2012)

i use right hand for like r turns
but i use left for u2


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## Bindedsa (Aug 18, 2015)

What is the best way to improve left handed turning. I've tried driliing algs, but I just end up doing wide r moves without thinking about it.


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## TDM (Aug 18, 2015)

Bindedsa said:


> What is the best way to improve left handed turning. I've tried driliing algs, but I just end up doing wide r moves without thinking about it.


Have you tried 2-gen solving?


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## Bindedsa (Aug 18, 2015)

TDM said:


> Have you tried 2-gen solving?



I just tried it, my left turning is absolutely terrible, I'm going to need to fix this,


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## DizzypheasantZZ (Aug 18, 2015)

Learn ZZ. If you are forced to use L turns, you will get better at it.


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## xchippy (Aug 18, 2015)

I think using one hand over another is better because then you get more practice with it. And you don't need your left hand to be that great because you'll never use like left handed U perms or anything like that.


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## cmhardw (Aug 18, 2015)

Bindedsa said:


> What is the best way to improve left handed turning. I've tried driliing algs, but I just end up doing wide r moves without thinking about it.



I've consistently found that the best way to make a major change to your cubing is to make the change immediately and completely, and just accept that you are (temporarily) a little bit slower. This can be a good motivation to improve as you will again start setting "new pb" times as you improve again back to your old speed.

So to answer your question, just start doing left handed algs during solves. You may be a little slower in the short term, so start recording your "new pb" times and watch them improve.

Good luck!


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