# Is going slow REALLY better?



## blah (Jul 31, 2008)

I did a bunch of F2Ls today. I used the fast-and-choppy technique, i.e. going fast is more important than looking ahead, Nakajima style. Here are the stats:

Cubes Solved: 75
Average: 11.27
Standard Deviation: 1.22
Best Time: 8.99
Worst Time: 14.41
Best Average: 10.54

The last time I did an average of 100 F2Ls, which was slightly more than a week ago, I got an average of ~12.5, and that was with the go-slow-look-ahead technique. And the best average was ~11.5, didn't save the stats so I don't have the exact figures.

So here's my question, I doubt I can improve by more than a second for F2L in just a week, when I've in fact been doing more BLD than speedsolves, so rather than seeing the improvement as a result of practice, I'm attributing the fast times to the new fast-and-choppy technique I adopted.

They were _really_ choppy solves, there were long pauses between the cross and F2L, and I'd lose my "lookahead momentum" by the time I've reached the fourth pair, so there'd be a pause between the third and fourth pair.

Now here are the times:

```
11.76, 12.51,  9.93, 13.38, 13.13, (14.41), (8.99), 11.82, 11.70, 12.15,
12.17, 13.12, 10.35, 10.71, 13.11, 10.38, 13.43, 11.71, 10.54, 11.50,
10.48, 10.99, 11.71, 10.70,  9.43, 11.27, 10.02, 12.47, 11.55, 13.32,
10.38, 11.99,  9.01, 11.02,  9.19, 12.12,  9.76, 11.94, 12.39,  9.69,
11.45, 10.01, 13.85, 13.28, 12.82, [9.77,  9.09, 12.15, 10.28, 10.83,
11.04, 10.48, 11.80, 11.34,  9.92,  9.51, 10.41], 10.90, 11.84, 11.49,
12.37, 10.74, 11.34, 10.03, 11.15, 11.65, 11.23, 10.79, 12.01, 11.49,
10.39, 11.14, 10.64, 11.03, 10.47
```

The times in the square brackets gave me a best average of 10.54.

As you can see, I was constantly improving towards the end of the solves when I got more and more familiar with my new fast-and-choppy technique, my rolling average was constantly improving to be my best average as I went along (I hope you get what I mean by this), and it stopped somewhere towards the end, and then I knew my fingers were tired 

I think most, if not all, of the sub-10's were because I had at least one pair that was a 3-move insertion pair. Only had 2 x-crosses and no lucky cases. And the sup-13's were the ones where I had to use optimized (non-intuitive) algs that I learned recently and hence not so familiar with.

So what comments do you guys have about this? Should I stick to this fast-and-choppy thingy since it seems to yield better results? Or should I go back to go-slow-look-ahead because it's more beneficial in the long run? I dunno, I've always been strongly against fast-and-choppy myself, but I decided to give it a go today and I was definitely surprised by the results that came out of it...

Edit: oh by the way, "side question": I average 18-ish now, with an F2L average like this, should I start working on my LL? Thanks.


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## DAE_JA_VOO (Jul 31, 2008)

You know, i was always doing fast and choppy solves, but one day i decided to give slow F2L a shot, and it shaved loads of time off my solves, like 3 seconds. Granted, i'm not as fast as you are (avg is 29), so my opinion on this particular matter isn't all that relevant, but still, i've found that if i just relax and take my time solving, i'm quite a bit faster.


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## blah (Jul 31, 2008)

Yeah I know exactly what you mean because I was once where you are, I didn't magically leap to where I am now  And go-slow-look-ahead _has indeed_ gotten me to sub-20 and in fact a sub-18 best average, so I'd say you should stick with it.

I'm just wondering if I should abandon it to go faster than I currently am.


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## DAE_JA_VOO (Jul 31, 2008)

Yeah, agreed. I always read about guys going slow and never tried it, and i was struggling to get to sub 30 avg. EVENTUALLY i decided to try and it instantly dropped my times. Although, when you're as fast as YOU are, you don't really HAVE time to play with


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## Escher (Jul 31, 2008)

i reckon go slow, look ahead, or learn what each of your cases do to neighbouring pieces, and then speed that up towards 3/4 tps. A house built on concrete is better than a house built on sand however, you are a lot faster than me, so maybe im not qualified enough to say... How many looks is your last layer? if its 2L then you could improve significantly, if its 3L maybe practice doing perms without AUF or something and work towards 2-look? anyway, im gonna go practice now. you're pretty fast...


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## blah (Jul 31, 2008)

Oh thanks for reminding me Escher, forgot to mention that, I use almost-full OLL/PLL (yet to to learn 4 OLLs, been lazy for 2 months now ).


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## DAE_JA_VOO (Jul 31, 2008)

LOL dude it's 4 OLLs, that'll take you two days at most


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## blah (Jul 31, 2008)

DAE_JA_VOO said:


> LOL dude it's 4 OLLs, that'll take you two days at most



Ah, young friend, laziness is measured not by the number of moons passed, you see.


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## hawkmp4 (Jul 31, 2008)

Nope. Laziness is measured by the moons needed to pass till your deadline.


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## Ville Seppänen (Jul 31, 2008)

Fast and choppy got me from 20s to ~17, with best average being 16.16. I don't know whick style is better, both have a sub10 average.


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## DAE_JA_VOO (Jul 31, 2008)

blah said:


> DAE_JA_VOO said:
> 
> 
> > LOL dude it's 4 OLLs, that'll take you two days at most
> ...



LOL!! Young friend? How exactly do you know how old i am? And how old are YOU?


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## Lotsofsloths (Jul 31, 2008)

Sometimes its better to go fast and PUSH yourself to look ahead but still go Yu Nakajima Style.
And I bet Yu Nakajima looks ahead.


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## nitrocan (Jul 31, 2008)

I think Yu Nakajima can tell where the pieces will go before doing his f2l algs
There's no way that he can just place an f2l slot, then look for another one. Of course he looks ahead, but he does it instantly.


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## badmephisto (Jul 31, 2008)

I guess the ultimate goal is to lookahead while still going fast. Many times when I'm solving, for fun, I decide to do one slow F2L solve, and when Im done I cannot believe that I get an incredible time. Its so strange that it could work in reverse as well, as you claim.
I will once have to do a quantitative study of this phenomena.


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## fanwuq (Jul 31, 2008)

For me, it really depends on the day and my mood.


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## PCwizCube (Jul 31, 2008)

DAE_JA_VOO said:


> Yeah, agreed. I always read about guys going slow and never tried it, and i was struggling to get to sub 30 avg. EVENTUALLY i decided to try and it instantly dropped my times. Although, when you're as fast as YOU are, you don't really HAVE time to play with


I was in the EXACT EXACT same situation as you a couple of months ago 

And these averages, are you doing the cross and F2L, or just inserting the C/E pairs? If you're doing both, you last layer is bad. If you're doing just inserting the C/E pairs, your times are about the same as mine, and I average ~23 seconds


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## blah (Jul 31, 2008)

DAE_JA_VOO said:


> LOL!! Young friend? How exactly do you know how old i am? And how old are YOU?


I don't, I just wanted to project the wise-old-guy image  And me? I'm 18 



Lotsofsloths said:


> Sometimes its better to go fast and PUSH yourself to look ahead but still go Yu Nakajima Style.
> And I bet Yu Nakajima looks ahead.


You'd win your bet, of course he looks ahead. He just places more emphasis on speed. It's about finding the right balance between speed and lookahead, he chose speed, while most of us choose lookahead, that's all.


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## DAE_JA_VOO (Jul 31, 2008)

blah said:


> DAE_JA_VOO said:
> 
> 
> > LOL!! Young friend? How exactly do you know how old i am? And how old are YOU?
> ...



HA!!! Now that's the pot calling the kettle black 

I'm a few years older than YOU, my young friend


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## slncuber21 (Jul 31, 2008)

hawkmp4 said:


> Nope. Laziness is measured by the moons needed to pass till your deadline.



haha, i like that 

but i think you should give going slow a chance for like 3 days then try your fast and choppy for 3 days, then see what your times are and which ever one is better, stick with that one.

oh and be careful not to learn anything new after the first 3 days or else it might change the standings...


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## shelley (Jul 31, 2008)

Going slow is for the purpose of being able to look ahead. If you can look ahead while doing the fast choppy turning style, then certainly you'll be faster. You just don't want to do your turning all fast and choppy but have to pause for two seconds between each pair.


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## Crzyazn (Jul 31, 2008)

It is very true that Nakajima's insane turning speed gives him a little more room to look-ahead and achieve fast times.

But his slow-turning videos are pretty good indications that his look-ahead is as solid as any other pro cuber


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## hdskull (Jul 31, 2008)

Why do people think no look ahead, going as fast as you can is Nakajima style? It's not his style at all, if you haven't noticed, he DOES look ahead, it's just his speed is amazing. I don't really see him pause 1 second between each pair.


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## hawkmp4 (Jul 31, 2008)

hdskull said:


> Why do people think no look ahead, going as fast as you can is Nakajima style? It's not his style at all, if you haven't noticed, he DOES look ahead, it's just his speed is amazing. I don't really see him pause 1 second between each pair.


I think that's because when you see turning like he does, when he does make miniscule (like the rest of the top cubers) pauses for recognition its a bigger contrast.
Fast and choppy is a bad description. I think his recognition times are the same as the other top cubers, he just turns faster.


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## Speedy McFastfast (Aug 2, 2008)

I have to say that slow turning speeds are better for different methods. For instance, for the 3x3 I use Petrus method. If you go fast, you have no look ahead, and the look ahead for Petrus is harder than for Fridrich.

For 4x4, however, I use K4. I've noticed I have to move quickly, and almost constantly, to have a good solve. There's not much room to stop and look around during my solves.


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## hdskull (Aug 2, 2008)

hawkmp4 said:


> Fast and choppy is a bad description. I think his recognition times are the same as the other top cubers, he just turns faster.



Exactly, and that's why he's faster.


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## xXdaveXsuperstarXx (Jun 8, 2009)

He must have some good algorithms.


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## jcuber (Jun 8, 2009)

Do you ever look at how old threads are? MAJOR BUMP, and for no good reason.


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## darkzelkova (Jun 9, 2009)

Yeah seriously, how would you even find this?


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## BigSams (Jun 9, 2009)

lol not that big of a bump. i've seen 2007s and 2006s bumped before


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## Logan (Jun 9, 2009)

10 month bump = fail
2 year bump = super fail
10 month bump w/pointless post = Uber fail


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## Poke (Jun 9, 2009)

Logan said:


> Over 10 month bump = Failure


 
You're saying it wouldn't be a failure if it was bumped May 31st.


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## Lucas Garron (Jun 9, 2009)

Poke said:


> Logan said:
> 
> 
> > Over 10 month bump = Failure
> ...


Yes, that's exactly what he's saying.


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