# How many people have you taught to solve cubes?



## ~Adam~ (Aug 28, 2010)

Within a week of learning I taught 2 other friends.
I think I'm up to 7 now with 1 well on their way.
At least another 6 have learnt from them.

How many people have you infected with the ability to solve a 3x3x3 or other twisty puzzles?


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## Andreaillest (Aug 28, 2010)

About 2-3. I'm sure they don't cube at all anymore.


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## supercuber86 (Aug 28, 2010)

I've taught 2 they dont remember the steps or algorithms but i taught them and they solved it


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## RCTACameron (Aug 28, 2010)

Because of me, probably 4 or 5 people learned how to cube, and another about 3 people started learning, but have stopped. 3 of the people I have taught still cube.


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## TEGTaylor (Aug 28, 2010)

I have taught 2 people, but gotten 9 people, not including the 2 I taught


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## cmhardw (Aug 28, 2010)

Had a club in high school, and taught some friends in college, ran a puzzle clinic at a math camp for 3 years to teach kids how to solve, have a club at the college where I teach, plus some other miscellaneous friends of friends or friends of siblings = I've probably taught around 200 people to solve the cube since 1998 when I first started.

Chris


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## Daniel Wu (Aug 28, 2010)

4 I think.


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## aronpm (Aug 28, 2010)

0

I'm horrible at teaching and explaining.


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## hawkmp4 (Aug 28, 2010)

Taught one to solve a 3x3, taught another to solve a megaminx (without knowing how to solve 3x3). I'm more proud of teaching the guy megaminx. I explained to him the concept of commutators and he actually understands how to solve the LL.


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## BiLiZawZomE (Aug 28, 2010)

i taught 5 of my freinds how to cube

then we brought all are cubes to school one day and had a race, which i won


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## Lucas Garron (Aug 28, 2010)

http://web.archive.org/web/20071217020016/www.speedcubing.com/records/recs_stats_train.html

Anyhow, I've probably taught hundreds by now. At some point, the question doesn't really have a clear answer anymore.


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## ThatGuy (Aug 28, 2010)

I went to Ross last summer (2009) and co-taught 10 or so people. Some got sub 50 before the end of camp and I attempted (haha didn't really work) to teach some F2L to some people. I remember having to write down the 3 corner cycle a bunch of times.


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## krnballerzzz (Aug 28, 2010)

I was president of the cube club in my high school junior and senior year. I probably taught 20 people in my life. I'm horrible at teaching PLL though .


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## ben1996123 (Aug 28, 2010)

2. 1 friend learnt to solve a 3x3 in late 2007 and now averages about 40 still using beginners CLL and ELL (lol). And my dad can solve a 2x2 in about 30 seconds, with a PB of 8 seconds (LL skip). He does FL > PLL with the alg that inserts a middle layer edge on 3x3, > R' D' R D OLL


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## choza244 (Aug 28, 2010)

i think like 10 friends, and some other learned from them


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## da25centz (Aug 28, 2010)

taught my younger brother how to do a 2x2, taught like 5 or 6 of my friends how to do 3x3


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## CubesOfTheWorld (Aug 28, 2010)

0. No one has asked me to teach them. I have motivated 5 people to learn, though.


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## guinepigs rock (Aug 28, 2010)

I taught one to solve the cube but she all ready was learning and knew notation.


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## Forte (Aug 28, 2010)

1.


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## number1failure (Aug 28, 2010)

Tried to teach my cousin LBL, but she can only solve the first layer, sometimes the second. She makes me wanna :fp


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## Mitch15 (Aug 28, 2010)

11 and some in progress


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## Zeat (Aug 28, 2010)

10-15.
I have a rubik club in my school


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## Forte (Aug 28, 2010)

number1failure said:


> Tried to teach my cousin LBL, but she can only solve the first layer, sometimes the second. She makes me wanna :fp



Be more patient.


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## ianini (Aug 28, 2010)

I taught my dad how to solve the cross.

I'm pretty proud of myself.


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## pappas (Aug 28, 2010)

0
But I taught my sister intuitive f2l and then she didn't want to learn any algs for LL.


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## Chrish (Aug 28, 2010)

I taught one friend, as he was the only one that wanted to put the time to learn. I didn't teach him notation or anything. He's bright and has more spacial intelligence than anything else.. he was able to remember what the algorithms were from watching me show him 2-5 times.

He only knows the beginners method, which is all he wants to learn and is satisfied with his progress. I gave him a cube and he solves it time to time, he isn't into the 'sport', if you will.


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## theace (Aug 28, 2010)

i taught 2, out of which one does sub 60 and the other being a dumass, can't even do sub 3 min. And she's been doing it for a year. I'll be teaching about 4 more. If all goes well, i'll be holding a major cubing workshop soon.


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## oprah62 (Aug 28, 2010)

I run a club at school.


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## Joker (Aug 28, 2010)

cmhardw said:


> Had a club in high school, and taught some friends in college, ran a puzzle clinic at a math camp for 3 years to teach kids how to solve, have a club at the college where I teach, plus some other miscellaneous friends of friends or friends of siblings = I've probably taught around 200 people to solve the cube since 1998 when I first started.
> 
> Chris


Thats a lot. Congratz.


BiLiZawZomE said:


> i taught 5 of my freinds how to cube
> 
> then we brought all are cubes to school one day and had a race, which i won


Yeah I think you have a lil advanage lol. You coulda went easy and went OH while they did 2H or something to make it more fair haha.


ianini said:


> I taught my dad how to solve the cross.
> 
> I'm pretty proud of myself.


Lol. Good job

Anyhow, I taught my dad the F2L (LBL, but he doesn't want to learn the few algs for LL)
Also, taught a friend the first layer.
Motivated a bunch others over the net also.


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## Joker (Aug 28, 2010)

Chrish said:


> I taught one friend, as he was the only one that wanted to put the time to learn. I didn't teach him notation or anything. He's bright and has more spacial intelligence than anything else.. he was able to remember what the algorithms were from watching me show him 2-5 times.
> 
> He only knows the beginners method, which is all he wants to learn and is satisfied with his progress. I gave him a cube and he solves it time to time, he isn't into the 'sport', if you will.



No notation=good because then he learns from fingertricks and muscle memory, rather than thinking something like "now I do Frooruf (F R U R' U' F' etc [I did that as a beginner...lol])
And also, maybe tell him about Fridrich (don't push him) and people that can sub 13 the cube...that might wanna make him solve more on his own.


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## gon (Aug 28, 2010)

Just one, my little brother. I got so angry while I was trying to teach him though. I might take him to Berkeley Fall.


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## The Bloody Talon (Aug 28, 2010)

the whole class!
about 20~25 people


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## Jaysammey777 (Aug 28, 2010)

IDK at least 50. I made a book cause I got tired of teaching ppl it, that went around the school for a year. But only 2 ppl are still mildly into it, and 1 I am reteaching.


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## TheCubeMaster5000 (Aug 28, 2010)

Zero + at least 4 failed attempts on people who don't care.:fp


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## Andrew Ricci (Aug 28, 2010)

TheCubeMaster5000 said:


> Zero + at least 4 failed attempts on people who don't care.:fp



Same, nobody I know seems to care.


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## cmhardw (Aug 28, 2010)

Joker said:


> No notation=good because then he learns from fingertricks and muscle memory, rather than thinking something like "now I do Frooruf (F R U R' U' F' etc [I did that as a beginner...lol])



I completely agree with this. I never teach new cubers notation, nor do I even call the sides correctly most of the time. I usually call the F face "steering wheel" and the U face "helicopter blade." I know it sounds stupid, but after years of asking them to turn the Front face, then having them undo the U layer turn they just did, or something similar for asking them to do U turns, I just switched the names.

I also have a lot of other weird stupid memory mnemonic phrases. For conjugate maneuvers I call them "Baseball throws," or sometimes I use the revolving door analogy that Dan Knights uses, and I never explain commutators as a concept, I just relate them to the conjugates contained within.

So for example, to do an A perm at the last layer I teach them using Joël van Noort's commutator last layer technique (which I think is the best beginner method out there in terms of teaching time and teaching ease, btw) I would show them:
R' D2 R U R' D2 R U R' D2 R U2 R' D2 R

I would call the maneuver R' D2 R a "baseball throw." For example, the exact words I would use with a student to do this A perm are something like:

"The corner in the front here (point to UFR) has (list the three colors you see). This corner is supposed to go back here (point to UBR). But first we need to throw it out of the glove (the UFR position, not the piece) since this glove is holding the wrong baseball (the actual piece in the UFR location - which belongs in the UBR location). To throw it away drop your glove down to the ground (do the R' move), now throw the baseball away from you as far as you can (do the D2 move. Most people ask you here which direction to turn, tell them it does not matter as D2 = (D')2, but explain this to them), and then bring your glove hand back up towards you (do the R move).

Now this destroys the bottom two layers a good bit (tell them not to panic, as sometimes they actually do get really worried here!), but we're going to fix it. We have to helicopter (do some form of U turn) the next piece over to the front here (the UFR location) so that we can catch it. Remember that our baseball (the piece that was in the UFR location before we started) needed to go here (point to UBR). So helicopter that spot over here to the front (Do a U turn so that the UBR location is now at UFR). Now this time we're going to catch the baseball we just threw away. First drop your glove down to the ground (do the R' turn), next the baseball comes rolling towards you and you catch it (do the D2 turn), and finally bring your glove back up toward you (do the R turn)."

Now just repeat the process for the next two conjugate maneuvers of (R' D2 R), and they will have the A perm down. Not only that, but because they learned it as a story, and not an algorithm, they almost never forget it later even if they put the cube down for a couple weeks and then pick it up again later.

Most cubers, I think, would cringe at the terms I am using. However, I have found that 99.9% of people just want to learn how to solve it, and are not interested in speedcubing. For those people I feel it is better to tell them a silly memory mnemonic story as to why they are doing the turns that they do, so that they can remember them. Most people I teach I jokingly tell them that to solve the cube, all you need to do is play baseball over and over (use conjugate maneuvers a LOT) and they can remember that. I never teach them notation, and I only refer to the F face as "front" and the U face as "up" the very first time so that I can tell them which side is the "steering wheel" and which side is the "helicopter blade." It sounds stupid, but people don't mess up with "turn the steering wheel" as often as they do with "turn the front face."

For the rare few who actually do get interested in speedcubing, I tell them that they have to learn the standard notation, so that I can tell them more complicated maneuvers or algorithms much more easily. Usually for these people they are excited to be getting further into the world of cubing so this is no problem. Telling someone who is only interested to solve it once, and just to be able to say that they have done it, will usually drive them away and they don't ever finish learning how to solve in the first place.

Just my two cents,
Chris


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## ElectricDoodie (Aug 28, 2010)

Joker said:


> Chrish said:
> 
> 
> > I taught one friend, as he was the only one that wanted to put the time to learn. I didn't teach him notation or anything. He's bright and has more spacial intelligence than anything else.. he was able to remember what the algorithms were from watching me show him 2-5 times.
> ...



HAHAHAHA! I used to do the same thing, and say outloud, "Frooruf," as I was performing the alg.


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