# How to Improve: The Mountain



## Noahaha (Mar 11, 2014)

This video is about an approach that I think can help most people improve. Tell me what you think.


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## Phillip1847 (Mar 11, 2014)

I was about to make a point about how practice improves capability somewhat, then I realized that solving to practice familiarity is just practicing the skill of F2L, which is a massive leap up.
In fact, I think it could be reasonable to think that it is a leap up to Feliks or so, but it takes a while to traverse this step. Which could make the mountain really a 3D mountain, with massive boulders to be found around the path up. Some raw boulders(F2L) asre too big to traverse by themselves, and some smaller boulders(IE, lookahead and near the top, multislotting) that can assist in climbing it.
To delve deeper into metaphor, just solving without learning is taking a long and slow, but not very steep way up the mountain, while deliberate practice combined with solving is a path that is moderately steep, but fast enough.

Anyway, cool video, I enjoyed it.


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## A Leman (Mar 11, 2014)

I like this metaphor. To extend on it, mountains are quiet places and the people that can live on them learn how to think for themselves. I have been recently feeling like there is a growing city of people that don't even try to climb the mountain.


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## jeff081692 (Mar 11, 2014)

The first part of the mountain is easy. You are full of energy and are just climbing with little effort. Then you get tired and wonder why you are not climbing as fast as when you started. You keep trying to take a step and keep sliding back to your original position, instead of analyzing what is keeping you back and inventing a new technique for your climbing.

Great video, although I do wonder what the time ratio of deliberate practice to solves are for some of these guys that zip to the top. I know more time with deliberate practice lets you improve better in many other fields so I think something like 100 solves and another hour of deliberate practice would be enough but i'm still working out the perfect mix of solves/deliberate practice.

Also maybe some deliberate practice can be done during practice solves if you know what you are focusing on. Like for 3x3, doing normal solves but trying to see cross+1 each time is better deliberate practice than just seeing the cross in inspection and starting your solve.


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## Noahaha (Mar 11, 2014)

jeff081692 said:


> Also maybe some deliberate practice can be done during practice solves if you know what you are focusing on. Like for 3x3, doing normal solves but trying to see cross+1 each time is better deliberate practice than just seeing the cross in inspection and starting your solve.



I definitely agree with this. There's no reason why they can't be combined.


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## Stefan (Mar 11, 2014)

Nice concept and video, thanks. I really doubt I could ever be as fast as Feliks, though, now matter what/how I learn and practice. When Nakajima was top, I was able to replay his solves myself at his speed after practicing them a lot. I can't do that with Feliks. Might be an age issue, or maybe that's just an excuse 

Btw, I cringed at every "deliberative", I believe it's "deliberate".


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## Noahaha (Mar 11, 2014)

Stefan said:


> Nice concept and video, thanks. I really doubt I could ever be as fast as Feliks, though, now matter what/how I learn and practice. When Nakajima was top, I was able to replay his solves myself at his speed after practicing them a lot. I can't do that with Feliks. Might be an age issue, or maybe that's just an excuse
> 
> Btw, I cringed at every "deliberative", I believe it's "deliberate".



You're right. I've been saying it wrong all these years. Deliberative is a word though, so that has to count for something.


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## Renslay (Mar 11, 2014)

Great video. I always disagreed with people who said "just practice". No, practice won't be enough on its own! For example, if you practice a wrong method or silly fingertricks, that wouldn't help you improve.


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## antoineccantin (Mar 11, 2014)

Renslay said:


> Great video. I always disagreed with people who said "just practice". No, practice won't be enough on its own! For example, if you practice a wrong method or silly fingertricks, that wouldn't help you improve.



It depends how you define practice.


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## Faz (Mar 11, 2014)

Nice video, some interesting ideas! I'm not sure if I completely agree with everything though 



Renslay said:


> Great video. I always disagreed with people who said "just practice". No, practice won't be enough on its own! For example, if you practice a wrong method or silly fingertricks, that wouldn't help you improve.



My thinking is that when you're doing something over and over, you're naturally becoming more efficient at it. It's what Yu Nakajima did back in the day, just heaps and heaps of solves, and it's basically what I do/did too.


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## Noahaha (Mar 11, 2014)

fazrulz said:


> My thinking is that when you're doing something over and over, you're naturally becoming more efficient at it. It's what Yu Nakajima did back in the day, just heaps and heaps of solves, and it's basically what I do/did too.



If you are naturally becoming more efficient, then you are increasing your capability along the way. If that does happen naturally, then that's good, but I think that lots of people practice solves without really improving anything. I did fail to mention in the video that you can improve while doing lots of solves, as long as you are not just mindlessly solving.

Also hopefully you don't mind that I used your name so much.


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## jeff081692 (Mar 11, 2014)

I know for LL I do a lot of U3 and even U4 just for trying to recognize the PLL (and some OLL) and I have been cubing for a long time. One of the things that stops me from fixing this weakness is that if I try to fix it during normal solves I would be solving worse while I try to think about how I would better recognize the case. And so either solves without a timer or just setting up different LL possibilities and coming up with a better recognition system like 2 side for easy cases would be more beneficial than when I tend to ignore the weakness during normal solves. But once small things like that are taken care of I can see the benefit of doing lots of solves since they go by so quickly and it's all about maintaining a certain speed and focusing on turning technique rather than learning new things.

So I guess that is why slow solves are helpful since you don't have to feel pressured by the timer to get the fastest time when you know you have some bad cubing habits.


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## Escher (Mar 11, 2014)

fazrulz said:


> Nice video, some interesting ideas! I'm not sure if I completely agree with everything though
> 
> My thinking is that when you're doing something over and over, you're naturally becoming more efficient at it. It's what Yu Nakajima did back in the day, just heaps and heaps of solves, and it's basically what I do/did too.



I remember back in '09 we were racing to see who could get sub 11 avg 100 first, when we were both around 11.3-5 secs. While I was busy drilling PLLs and breakdowns, you did a huge number of solves and beat me to it, and then kept going  There should be some posts deep in the accomplishments thread... As far as I remember the extent of your deliberate practise was just mindfulness while grinding huge number of solves, which is by far the most efficient way to go around doing it, assuming you have the capacity to stay somewhat conscious of your little comments and optimisations. It's what I ended up turning to to get from high 8 averages down to low 8, and although there is a breakpoint for most people whereby slower and more conscious methods (like drills) need to be employed to go further and get back to grinding, I think mindful grinding is the best way to get things going quickly. It's kind of like a cut and bulk phase in weightlifting/body building.

@OP, I thought by mountain you would be talking about the 'asymptote' generated by the graph where x = improvement and y = time invested, but I suppose I like where you've gone with your video.

I quite like the capability/skill distinction, but I think you presented it as little more binary than it really is. Envisage turning your graph by 45 degrees anticlockwise, and consider how whenever you dedicate time specifically towards capability or skill, you're actually pulling yourself laterally away from the goal. It would make sense, then, why those who have improved in a way one can consider as 'optimal' are people like Nakajima, Feliks, and Alex Lau - those who improved by grinding a huge amount while keeping a steady mindset of improvement, rarely pulling themselves in any direction besides the goal. Like I was saying before though, I'm not sure everyone can keep this up.

Personally speaking I know I put FAR too much focus when practising a hobby in one or the other. With guitar, I never put much thought into capability, and alas never got as far as I could have - I simply got good at what I knew, so my mechanical skill was always high. In LoL, I typically spend way, way too much time reading and thinking about strategy, and only recently when I've been grinding have I seen my mechanical ability improve tenfold. I think cubing was the only hobby I've had so far where I found a balance and managed to maintain it - but nowadays I get much more enjoyment out of improving capability than becoming competitive, so rarely do I speedsolve any more. It's such a hard thing to balance, when you're just following your passion!

Good job anyway, it's always great to see stuff like this. I genuinely think the science of improvement is a vast and deep world that can draw on so many different areas for inspiration and development, and along with behavioural economics, is going to become a vitally important field in modern economies in the next 30 years. I love it!


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## RageCuber (Mar 11, 2014)

This is very inspiring in a way. It gave me new insights
into cubing and I feel that this is going to help a lot of
people (Including myself ). Recently I was kind of on 
a plateau, but then I noticed my PLL execution was pretty
bad, so I went to badmephisto's site downloaded the PLL 
trainer and nailed all my PLLs. Now I am getting times that
I consider to be good much more often. I can't speak for 
any one else, but this video was awesome! Keep at it!


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## mark49152 (Mar 11, 2014)

Great video. This is how I practice.

One thought on the comments about just grinding out solves: it could be correlation not causation. Perhaps the kind of people with the talent to get that fast are the kind of people who don't need targeted practice to get past their plateaus.


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## pipkiksass (Mar 12, 2014)

mark49152 said:


> Great video. This is how I practice.
> 
> One thought on the comments about just grinding out solves: it could be correlation not causation. Perhaps the kind of people with the talent to get that fast are the kind of people who don't need targeted practice to get past their plateaus.



Or perhaps they are the kind of people who can work towards targets while grinding out solves? I think everyone needs targeted practice, but different folks need different levels of conscious effort in order to include targets in their practice. I, for example, need to 100% concentrate on doing something in particular, like planning my cross (which is shocking) in order to work on it. Faz, on the other hand, didn't have to worry about it that much, because he achieved the same thing with less conscious effort.

But yeah, great video Noah - I can see myself smacking my head against the rise of the next step, wondering why I'm not climbing up the mountain... I've known about it a long time, but I suppose it's time to stop blindly solving and start working on some stuff!


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## mark49152 (Mar 12, 2014)

@Pip: by "targeted" I mean the kind of practice Noah called "deliberative" (which seems a misnomer). Not just having targets. Sorry for the confusion!


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## pipkiksass (Mar 12, 2014)

mark49152 said:


> @Pip: by "targeted" I mean the kind of practice Noah called "deliberative" (which seems a misnomer). Not just having targets. Sorry for the confusion!



No, I know, as did I. I think there's a varying level of deliberateness required between cubers. So while I have to turn off the timer, sit down and say "now I will practice cross", others might just turn off the timer and do slow solves, and achieve the same ends with less deliberateness/less specific goals/targets.


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## cmhardw (Mar 12, 2014)

Escher said:


> I quite like the capability/skill distinction, but I think you presented it as little more binary than it really is. Envisage turning your graph by 45 degrees anticlockwise, and consider how whenever you dedicate time specifically towards capability or skill, you're actually pulling yourself laterally away from the goal. It would make sense, then, why those who have improved in a way one can consider as 'optimal' are people like Nakajima, Feliks, and Alex Lau - those who improved by grinding a huge amount while keeping a steady mindset of improvement, rarely pulling themselves in any direction besides the goal. Like I was saying before though, I'm not sure everyone can keep this up.



Noah's method, as presented, can be a way for us regular folk to emulate the fantastic improvement seen by the greats. I like your way of viewing the graph, Rowan. I will use Noah's approach when practicing, but I will view the graph the way Rowan mentions.

Great video Noah! It gives focus to us who are walking to the right into the same step for so long and aren't sure exactly why we aren't moving up our mountains.


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## MM99 (Mar 12, 2014)

jeff081692 said:


> The first part of the mountain is easy. You are full of energy and are just climbing with little effort. Then you get tired and wonder why you are not climbing as fast as when you started. You keep trying to take a step and keep sliding back to your original position, instead of analyzing what is keeping you back and inventing a new technique for your climbing.



I really did change my way of climbing by switching to zz but I'm stuck at the 20 second barrier just like I was with cfop... oh well I think the deliberate practice I should be doing is bld eo line that should keep me climbing the mountain


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## Padfoot (Mar 12, 2014)

I think this is a great idea. The only problem for me is that I try to learn new techniques, and then get bored of repeating the algorithm over and over again to memorize it. But before that happened I probably did a T permutation 50+ times before stopping.


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## szalejot (Mar 12, 2014)

This is nice idea. Gets me thinking about my practice and fact, that I should change something, because I am staying in place.


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## pipkiksass (Mar 12, 2014)

Padfoot said:


> I think this is a great idea. The only problem for me is that I try to learn new techniques, and then get bored of repeating the algorithm over and over again to memorize it. But before that happened I probably did a T permutation 50+ times before stopping.



Try drilling the new alg less, say 20 times, then doing a lot of slow solves with the new alg written down in case you forget it.

When the case you are learning comes up, try to remember your new alg. If you can't, use your 'cheat sheet'. Eventually you won't need to look up the alg at all.

Using the alg in slow solves helps reinforce it in you're memory, but also helps with recognising the case, but without time pressure, which might cause you to revert to your old alg or 2-look.

Works for me, anyway!


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## jeff081692 (Mar 12, 2014)

MM99 said:


> I really did change my way of climbing by switching to zz but I'm stuck at the 20 second barrier just like I was with cfop... oh well I think the deliberate practice I should be doing is bld eo line that should keep me climbing the mountain



There is almost always something new you can learn about your method. I am still learning new ways to insert cross pieces that make me facepalm that I was doing things badly all this time. Eventually you pick up on so many little things that your average just seems to jump down a level. I was stuck at 20 seconds for a while and then one day I just wasn't. If you pay close attention during solving you start to notice things you could do just a little differently but makes a big difference when combined with all the other tips out there.

One example of a little thing I realized that changed my cubing was I never looked at the Back bottom corners during F2L. Often times I would rotate to solve a BR slot and then realize I should rotate back because I didn't lookahead enough to realize I could solve the BR without rotating. So I made an effort to glance at the Back corners during F2L and now that habit with the knowledge of edge orientation makes it easy for me to tell if I should rotate or not.


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## Jaycee (Mar 12, 2014)

I watched this video last night and realized this could be why I suddenly more than a second faster (Literally. Check my posts from yesterday in the Accomplishment Thread xD). Thanks to jeff081692's advice in a help thread 2 weeks ago, I found a way to train lookahead that was much better than the way I had been doing. The capability increase made me faster after 10 days of practice. Great video, Noah!


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## pipkiksass (Mar 12, 2014)

Jaycee said:


> Thanks to jeff081692's advice in a help thread 2 weeks ago



What was the advice?


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## jeff081692 (Mar 12, 2014)

pipkiksass said:


> What was the advice?



I don't know what exactly helped him the most but my general approach in F2L for lookahead comes from studies on deliberate practice in typing. Once you do slow solves and understand what lookahead feels like when done correctly, increase the speed slightly while trying to maintain lookahead. This will introduce errors but each time you make a mistake in lookahead just try to be more careful if you get a similar situation in the future. This is stretching your abilities just beyond what you can normally do and is the essence of deliberate practice imo. As you get better at the increased speed you just increase by a little bit again and repeat. Also things like trying to solve 2 pairs BLD taking as much time as you need helps but do it only if you like it. The first technique is something you can practice in real solves while timing. I haven't experimented with doing pairs BLD but if you really think about how moves like R U R' affect different corner orientations and knowing which edges will stay in the same place then you are on your way to making snap decisions in solves since you have seen the effects of basic moves on surrounding pieces so much. This is why just practice can build your lookahead skills but only if you are paying attention to how pieces are being affected when you solve. 

The people who improve the fastest were just really good at picking up on how the cube is constantly changing. Someone like me who spent way too much time staring at my current pair during F2L really held me back because had I been looking around the cube while solving the pair I would see more. And once you can lookahead the next step as I said before is knowing how every combination of 3 moves in F2L affects the surrounding pieces. A good example of this is if you watch any sub 10 cubers example solves. Sometimes before they insert a pair they say "And instead of inserting like this and getting this bad case..." They have already seen what the cube will look like if they do a normal insert and can choose a better route in less than a second because of this.

Also typing is something that we commonly see plateaus in. Once you reach an acceptable level in typing people can go years and not increase there WPM at all. The deliberate practice technique of typing 15%-25% faster really worked. And I see enough similarities with typing and lookahead in F2L that I am sure that is the perfect way for me to practice at least.

Edit: Reminding yourself before each solve to lookahead might have been the tip I gave him now that I look back in my history. And that goes along with the idea that staring at your current pair while solving is bad and when you have improved from a minute to sub20 it is likely that you were not looking ahead in a majority of solves so it's a bad habit that should be broken and lots of people who get stuck at 20 seconds probably do not try to lookahead each solve. It's very easy to start a session lookingahead and then 30 solves later find yourself not really doing it when you are new to it.


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## Padfoot (Mar 12, 2014)

pipkiksass said:


> Try drilling the new alg less, say 20 times, then doing a lot of slow solves with the new alg written down in case you forget it.
> 
> When the case you are learning comes up, try to remember your new alg. If you can't, use your 'cheat sheet'. Eventually you won't need to look up the alg at all.
> 
> ...


 I only did it over 50 times because I have a horrible short term memory and I also won't write if I don't have to.


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## Jaysammey777 (Mar 12, 2014)

Mmmmmmm.
A video well worth my time 
Haven't read through the whole forum yet, but here is my first thoughts.
What about the peak? If someone reaches the peak, does that mean that their capability decrease while their skill increases? Oddly enough this was true for me when or entered the fun puzzle slicing last year. But then you start to climb a new mountain.

As well, I think you can do the opposite of steps, drive into the mountain and dig out some of it. Making skill easier and capability harder.

Just my first thoughts. I'll be interested to read the rest of the discussion later.


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## Noahaha (Mar 12, 2014)

Jaysammey777 said:


> Mmmmmmm.
> A video well worth my time
> Haven't read through the whole forum yet, but here is my first thoughts.
> What about the peak? If someone reaches the peak, does that mean that their capability decrease while their skill increases? Oddly enough this was true for me when or entered the fun puzzle slicing last year. But then you start to climb a new mountain.
> ...



There is no peak of course.


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## Jaysammey777 (Mar 12, 2014)

Noahaha said:


> There is no peak of course.



What about summits? the highest point an individual can reach.


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## uvafan (Mar 12, 2014)

Jaysammey777 said:


> What about summits? the highest point an individual can reach.



There are no limits, only plateaus.


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## Noahaha (Mar 12, 2014)

Jaysammey777 said:


> What about summits? the highest point an individual can reach.



No such thing. You can always keep improving.


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## pipkiksass (Mar 12, 2014)

jeff081692 said:


> Once you do slow solves and understand what lookahead feels like when done correctly, increase the speed slightly while trying to maintain lookahead. This will introduce errors but each time you make a mistake in lookahead just try to be more careful if you get a similar situation in the future.



Thanks - that's what I was looking for!  I can't even look ahead when I'm doing slow solves. I know I need to slow down, but I only cube for a few hours a week. If I had more time... 

I'm currently averaging about 18.5, and I feel like I've bludgeoned bad habits into my solves... it'll take some effort bludgeoning them out!


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## jeff081692 (Mar 12, 2014)

pipkiksass said:


> I can't even look ahead when I'm doing slow solves.



The step before that is being confident in how you would solve each F2L pair. If you can look at a random pair, close your eyes and solve it BLD easily and feel you could do this with every F2L case then that's when it's time to begin lookahead. As long as you are looking at everything but the pair you are solving when turning slow, you are making the most of your practice time and the more time you put into it the easier it will get.

Also I'm pretty sure that just like with sports or anything competitive there is an age where most people start to slightly degrade in skill (like decreased reaction time) but most people on this site are far from that point and have lots of potential to get extremely fast.


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## pipkiksass (Mar 12, 2014)

jeff081692 said:


> The step before that is being confident in how you would solve each F2L pair.



I've been at this stage for months, the reason I've not progressed is through laziness, rather than lack of familiarity!


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## XTowncuber (Mar 12, 2014)

I sort of went about this differently when I was getting good at pyra. I don't do this as much anymore, but I used to do long sessions of trying and retrying scrambles until I found a really great solution AND got a good time on it. Then I would move on to the next scramble. This kind of combined specialized practice and grinding out solves, and it pretty much improved every part of my solves simultaneously. The downsides are that you can't count PBs this way, and it doesn't work nearly as well for events that require lookahead during the solve.


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## Carrot (Mar 13, 2014)

XTowncuber said:


> I sort of went about this differently when I was getting good at pyra. I don't do this as much anymore, but I used to do long sessions of trying and retrying scrambles until I found a really great solution AND got a good time on it. Then I would move on to the next scramble. This kind of combined specialized practice and grinding out solves, and it pretty much improved every part of my solves simultaneously. The downsides are that you can't count PBs this way, and it doesn't work nearly as well for events that require lookahead during the solve.



That's really clever


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## Noahaha (Apr 28, 2014)

Likely relevant bump:

Feliks made a video of his own thoughts on the subject.


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## rybaby (Apr 29, 2014)

Noahaha said:


> Likely relevant bump:
> 
> Feliks made a video of his own thoughts on the subject.



Interesting....Seems like a contrast to what Noah was saying. I mean, I think Feliks' way would be optimal, but, realistically, I couldn't see everything getting better from just speedsolves. If one can deliberately practice during their speedsolves, that would be best. What does everyone else think?


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## jeff081692 (Apr 29, 2014)

I don't think it's too much of a contrast to what Noah was saying although that was my first instinct as well. Everything in cubing cubing can be broken down into how many patterns you know and how much practice you have done. By patterns I don't just mean algorithms but knowing how to AUF after each alg is an example and partial edge control is another example of something that once you have been exposed to it you can start using it in your own solves. And so when Feliks says watching example solves are helpful it's because you are exposed to new patterns and you can compare the new things to what you already do and decide if you want to switch or not. This is especially helpful when you have learned intuitive F2L but not every case is optimal because once you see someone do the same case in less moves with better finger tricks it's probably a good idea to consider making it a part of your solves but if you only do lots of timed solves you don't consider alternatives since the goal is to not think much while solving and you risk having a slower solve for trying something new.

Different finger tricks are also things you can learn from watching other cubers. I know Feliks developed his over lots of solves but I never knew about the finger push for U moves until I watched Feliks solve in slow motion. 

As for real deliberate practice and coming up with ways to practice your weaknesses, cubing probably has less of a need for it than most other fields. The main point for deliberate practice in tennis for example would be practicing a specific technique that would not occur too often but was still important. With cubing when you can practice everything once in 10-20 seconds there seems to be less of a need to isolate one aspect and drill it. I still think it's helpful (especially if you go beyond fridrich and plan on learning 100+ extra algs to be faster) but people like Feliks and Yu Nakajima have shown that lots of solves can get you far. I think Alex is the fastest cuber who did mostly technique work early on and then consolidated that knowledge with lots of solves like during the 10,000 cube marathon. And even during that marathon where he was doing only around 300 solves a day he was still improving if you look at his posts in the thread which shows that once you know most of the patterns you will ever need then lots of solves will help you maintain all that knowledge and make things feel effortless and you no longer have to think about what you are doing.

So I think one of the main takeaways I got was keep solves as a top priority but if you aren't improving then look at example solves of fast cubers and try to learn what they are doing differently that you can add to your solves and once you assimilate that knowledge then lots of practice will solidify it and you will improve over time.

I would say the best way to utilize some sort of deliberate practice while solving would be figuring out the best turn speed to practice with. In all the research articles I have found about perceptual motor skills when it comes to speed turns into pushing yourself by attempting to be faster than what is comfortable until it naturally becomes comfortable or not having to think as much as Feliks puts it.


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## mark49152 (Apr 29, 2014)

I don't think Feliks' video contradicts Noah's. Giving more priority and time to just solving doesn't preclude deliberate practice or mean that it isn't necessary or helpful. Noah's model is really just common sense.

I tend to think of deliberate practice as a tool for breaking away from a plateau. If you're not making much progress from just solving, and you know your lookahead is a weakness, deliberate training of lookahead techniques can help you break through.

Perhaps those people who say all you need to do is practice solving simply have enough natural talent that they are able to continually improve that way without hitting any significant plateaux and needing the boost that comes from deliberate, targeted practice.


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## MadaraMangekyou (Apr 29, 2014)

it talks about limits, that is a very important point in speedcubing
i've calculated, that, with a my speed of 6 turns/second and with full PLL and 2 Look OLL, I eventually could be able to solve the cube in 12 seconds, encouraging, isn't it?, that considering 72 turns/solve... which is higher than an average solve with full F2L, OLL and PLL...


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