# A word about practice



## jonlin (Aug 23, 2011)

Is this all you noobs are blabbing about? See, I've practiced. A lot. And then I hit a roadblock of 30 seconds. And then I posted a speedsolving forum asking people what to improve. Then I got comments like,"This kid is trying to find the easy way out, when he should just be practicing." That got me really pissed off.  Then I never trusted speedsolving(not really just never posted anything) after that and reasonably tried to do the things reasonable people who WANTED to help me and then practiced. But! what that did actually helped my times rather than the people who wanted me to practice my heart out. "Do this with fridrich,""Do that with fridrich", Fridrich method is not really the best method. I've seen in another post, somebody said,"Apply how you solve with other methods." So I learned roux method. and well, it didn't help that much, but gave me new concepts on how to make X-crosses. So guys, don't waste people's lives saying 'practice, your time will improve', instead give helpful tips, tips that could help people rather than waste their lives by practicing. Trust me. It helped for me.


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## Cubetastic (Aug 23, 2011)

but, you needed to practice the cross and roux to get better, is it not considered practice

also, when you saw that fridrich wasnt getting any faster, wouldnt you think of trying something else if youve practiced your heart out?


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## 5BLD (Aug 23, 2011)

... You're going to call be nouxb for saying this, and go ahead, I don't care.
You know, practicing doesn't just mean solving over and over. It can mean researching methods and new techniques.

And exploring new methods is always a good thing, as you discovered.


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## Escher (Aug 23, 2011)

I just wish people would link my thread on practice more. I was hoping it would solve the problem of new users replying to other new users threads with bad/outdated practice advice


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## jonlin (Aug 23, 2011)

Look, I just wanted to say do not waste people's lives by saying practice. I'm saying that you should help people however you can. HOWEVER, there is one exception I left out. If you can't really see anything there is to improve with them, say practice more.


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## Godmil (Aug 23, 2011)

What times are you getting now?


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## waffle=ijm (Aug 23, 2011)

Just want to add this link in as well as my opinion on the matter

http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?27870-How-to-practice.

I know most people generalize and say "practice" but (IMO) 40% of those who say that, actually meant to link the above thread. They care deeply about your avid outlook on how to become faster or use fewer moves, etc.
(IMO) 60% of those people who said to practice have some kind of superiority complex, in their minds, they think "Noob, gtfo, I got here from practicing. Eff YEAH SUB-40! You can be just like me if you practice like me" or the like. They simply forget that the other user isn't them. They may have more or less knowledge on the cube, know more or less alg, the sort.

Let's try to be the 40% people! But actually help the nubs out. Tips and tricks and the like. *Just tell em, but not force them.*

For nubs, try to tell us what you know, what your break down is, and possible video of a solve so we can evaluate. Just saying "I'm slow help me" isn't really going to give us an example on how you solve, therefore the response to this is just "Practice." *The more general you are to us, we'll be just as general to you.*


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## shelley (Aug 23, 2011)

So how fast are you now?


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## chrissyD (Aug 23, 2011)

omfg making a thread demanding tips on how to improve isn't going to make you faster. in the past few weeks my average has gone down by a second just from doing hundreds of solves. you have to find a way of *practicing* that suits you best. In my case i just to cross+f2l solves all day till i get bored then do an avg of 100 the next day. yes you can make a thread asking for tips but you have the put the work in not us.


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## JonnyWhoopes (Aug 23, 2011)

chrissyD said:


> omfg making a thread demanding tips on how to improve isn't going to make you faster. in the past few weeks my average has gone down by a second just from doing hundreds of solves. you have to find a way of *practicing* that suits you best. In my case i just to cross+f2l solves all day till i get bored then do an avg of 100 the next day. yes you can make a thread asking for tips but you have the put the work in not us.


 
lol wut u mad at bro?

No, seriously, what are you mad at? This thread was very reasonable, and doesn't quite fit the bill for what you seem to be raeging* about.

*Yes, raeging.


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## ARyder (Aug 23, 2011)

jonlin said:


> Look, I just wanted to say do not waste people's lives by saying practice. I'm saying that you should help people however you can. HOWEVER, there is one exception I left out. If you can't really see anything there is to improve with them, say practice more.



I would not suggest hours and hours of practice! Sure practice is important but it's the way one practices that matters more than how many hours.

I'm not a guru cube solver, recently got into it, but I know from many years of guitar playing plus I live in a house full of musicians and I can see what works - it's better to practice what you need in a focussed way for 10 to 15 minutes a day rather than hours and hours of utterly useless drivel!

And if people can't see your solves they can't provide specific advice. You'll only get the general adage "practice".

But then again hours of high quality practice (very different to hours and hours of drivel) is yet another thing all together, to be the best at something I dare say it'll take more than 15 minutes a day.

I'd say find *one* thing and fix that first. Is it turning speed, then finger tricks. Is it F2L then sharpen that, is it the cross then fix that and maybe X-cross. If you want better advice from any forum provide more information, like a youtube of your solves ... 

For example my solving times are blown out by F2L look times, it takes me too long to find the pieces - so if I want to go faster I must fix that one thing. Once that is truly improved I can find the next thing.

HTH.


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## Vinny (Aug 23, 2011)

So if you think that "practicing" (or as you would define it, solving the cube a bunch of times) is bad, then why cube? That is what cubing is, is it not?


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## RNewms27 (Aug 23, 2011)

JonnyWhoopes said:


> lol wut


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## Vincents (Aug 23, 2011)

But its...its easy ... to, to talk about... It's easy to sum it up when you're just talking about practice. We're sitting in here, and I'm supposed to be the franchise cuber, and we in here talking about practice. I mean, listen, we're talking about practice, not a comp, not a comp, not a comp, we talking about practice. Not a comp. Not, not ... Not the comp that I go out there and die for and play every comp like it's my last. Not the comp, but we're talking about practice, man. I mean, how silly is that? ...

And we talking about practice. I know I supposed to be there. I know I'm supposed to lead by example... I know that... And i'm not.. I'm not shoving it aside, you know, like it don't mean anything. I know it's important, I do. I honestly do...

But we're talking about practice man. What are we talking about? Practice? We're talking about practice, man. (laughter from the media crowd) We're talking about practice. We're talking about practice. We aint talking about the comp. (more laughter) We're talking about practice, man. When you come to the venue, and you see me cube, you see me cube don't you? You've seen me give everything I've got, right? But we're talking about practice right now. We taking about pr... (Interrupted)


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## chrissyD (Aug 23, 2011)

Vincents said:


> But its...its easy ... to, to talk about... It's easy to sum it up when you're just talking about practice. We're sitting in here, and I'm supposed to be the franchise cuber, and we in here talking about practice. I mean, listen, we're talking about practice, not a comp, not a comp, not a comp, we talking about practice. Not a comp. Not, not ... Not the comp that I go out there and die for and play every comp like it's my last. Not the comp, but we're talking about practice, man. I mean, how silly is that? ...
> 
> And we talking about practice. I know I supposed to be there. I know I'm supposed to lead by example... I know that... And i'm not.. I'm not shoving it aside, you know, like it don't mean anything. I know it's important, I do. I honestly do...
> 
> But we're talking about practice man. What are we talking about? Practice? We're talking about practice, man. (laughter from the media crowd) We're talking about practice. We're talking about practice. We aint talking about the comp. (more laughter) We're talking about practice, man. When you come to the venue, and you see me cube, you see me cube don't you? You've seen me give everything I've got, right? But we're talking about practice right now. We taking about pr... (Interrupted)


 
was that supposed to be some sort of rap?


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## Hershey (Aug 23, 2011)

chrissyD said:


> was that supposed to be some sort of rap?


 
If it was, that post gives rap music a bad name.


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## Jorghi (Aug 23, 2011)

Lol.. You don't get good at basketball if all you do is shoot.


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## chrissyD (Aug 23, 2011)

Jorghi said:


> Lol.. You don't get good at basketball if all you do is shoot.


 
why would you be shooting people in basketball?


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## 5BLD (Aug 23, 2011)

Vincents said:


> But its...its easy ... to, to talk about... It's easy to sum it up when you're just talking about practice. We're sitting in here, and I'm supposed to be the franchise cuber, and we in here talking about practice. I mean, listen, we're talking about practice, not a comp, not a comp, not a comp, we talking about practice. Not a comp. Not, not ... Not the comp that I go out there and die for and play every comp like it's my last. Not the comp, but we're talking about practice, man. I mean, how silly is that? ...
> 
> And we talking about practice. I know I supposed to be there. I know I'm supposed to lead by example... I know that... And i'm not.. I'm not shoving it aside, you know, like it don't mean anything. I know it's important, I do. I honestly do...
> 
> But we're talking about practice man. What are we talking about? Practice? We're talking about practice, man. (laughter from the media crowd) We're talking about practice. We're talking about practice. We aint talking about the comp. (more laughter) We're talking about practice, man. When you come to the venue, and you see me cube, you see me cube don't you? You've seen me give everything I've got, right? But we're talking about practice right now. We taking about pr... (Interrupted)


 
Lol... If someone made that into a rap I would actually like it.
Especially with the canned laughter. It'd be great to annoy people with.


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## Dene (Aug 23, 2011)

Practise *is* all you need to do to get faster. Stop wasting time with silly threads and actually cube and maybe you will break that nubcake barrier of 30 seconds. If you took the time to stop and think that maybe you were just being a big baby maybe you would have improved a lot faster.


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## Schmidt (Aug 23, 2011)

Tape yourself! If your cross takes 8 sec, work on that. If you are starring at the cube for long seconds at a time during F2L, work on that. If you are applying the Sune until OLL is done, learn more algs. Read through the already made threads on how to practice instead of making new ones, there might be something useful. Then, when YOU find out what is slowing YOU down, you can ask for specific help.
My guess is: The most helpful cubers are only helpful until a certain point! When they have answered the same Q over and over again, and given directions to the same YouTube channel over and over again, they become indifferent and shout "PRACTICE" at anyone.


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## cubersmith (Aug 23, 2011)

Escher said:


> I just wish people would link my thread on practice more. I was hoping it would solve the problem of new users replying to other new users threads with bad/outdated practice advice



http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?27870-How-to-practice.

Heh, there we go 

Also,



Vinny said:


> So if you think that "practicing" (or as you would define it, solving the cube a bunch of times) is bad, then why cube? That is what cubing is, is it not?



Not in my opinion.


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## tozies24 (Aug 23, 2011)

Vincents said:


> But its...its easy ... to, to talk about... It's easy to sum it up when you're just talking about practice. We're sitting in here, and I'm supposed to be the franchise cuber, and we in here talking about practice. I mean, listen, we're talking about practice, not a comp, not a comp, not a comp, we talking about practice. Not a comp. Not, not ... Not the comp that I go out there and die for and play every comp like it's my last. Not the comp, but we're talking about practice, man. I mean, how silly is that? ...
> 
> And we talking about practice. I know I supposed to be there. I know I'm supposed to lead by example... I know that... And i'm not.. I'm not shoving it aside, you know, like it don't mean anything. I know it's important, I do. I honestly do...
> 
> But we're talking about practice man. What are we talking about? Practice? We're talking about practice, man. (laughter from the media crowd) We're talking about practice. We're talking about practice. We aint talking about the comp. (more laughter) We're talking about practice, man. When you come to the venue, and you see me cube, you see me cube don't you? You've seen me give everything I've got, right? But we're talking about practice right now. We taking about pr... (Interrupted)


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## Erzz (Aug 23, 2011)

> until the very very top, in almost anything, all that matters is how much work you put in, the only problem is most people cant work hard even at things they do enjoy, much less things they dont have a real passion for.


It's true.


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## DaveyCow (Aug 23, 2011)

waffle=ijm said:


> Just want to add this link in as well as my opinion on the matter
> 
> http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?27870-How-to-practice.



Thanx for posting this link! Sorry if I missed it in the "noobs sections" of the forums.... This is insanely useful advice for a noob like me - I even copyied/pasted to a word doc and saved on my computer so I don't forget it (and can take it with me on vacation in a few weeks for reference when I'll have no internet 

So again, thx waffle for posting link and your additional advice and THANK YOU Escher for the article!!


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## DaveyCow (Aug 23, 2011)

RNewms27 said:


>



LOL - I must have this picture <like>


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## jonlin (Aug 23, 2011)

shelley said:


> So how fast are you now?


 I am sub 25 now.


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## DaveyCow (Aug 23, 2011)

5BLD said:


> Lol... If someone made that into a rap I would actually like it.
> Especially with the canned laughter. It'd be great to annoy people with.



The rap would be called "Eminem practices cubing"


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## Akuma (Aug 23, 2011)

jonlin said:


> And then I hit a roadblock of 30 seconds.


 

...the fudge?

I never ever encountered a roadblock at 30 seconds. I hit sub-25 using a magic method called 'learning full PLL'.
After that I easily hit sub-25.


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## Andreaillest (Aug 23, 2011)

Rowan's thread is ace and is basically everything you need to know about how to practice. When people just say, "practice" they forget to tell you on what to practice on. If you think we're not helpful or doing this to spite you, then you have it all wrong. We do want to help people get faster. Complaining or whining about it won't help. 

A nice way to see on what to practice on is to tape yourself doing an avg. When you watch it, take notice of your mistakes and weak points. Then PRACTICE on improving those points. And maybe find or search some tutorials on youtube or speedsolving that talk about those points. It most likely will already be up.


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## macky (Aug 24, 2011)

Escher said:


> I just wish people would link my thread on practice more. I was hoping it would solve the problem of new users replying to other new users threads with bad/outdated practice advice



Yeah, seriously. I thought this p-word business was the dumbest thing on SS. I'm glad it's died down a bit.


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## Godmil (Aug 24, 2011)

ARyder said:


> I would not suggest hours and hours of practice! Sure practice is important but it's the way one practices that matters more than how many hours.
> 
> I'm not a guru cube solver, recently got into it, but I know from many years of guitar playing plus I live in a house full of musicians and I can see what works - it's better to practice what you need in a focussed way for 10 to 15 minutes a day rather than hours and hours of utterly useless drivel!



There are some good points there. (although I suck) I too follow similar principles about working on my alg speeds as I did when trying to get faster on the guitar (economy of movement and such like). However there is a big difference, Cubing also has the Recognision/recollection component, where the more times you see a case (be it an F2L case or an OLL) the quicker you'll get at recognising it and remembering what to do. In that respect I find it to me more similar to language learning where immersion can be a lot better than just 10-15mins a day.


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## ARyder (Aug 25, 2011)

Godmil said:


> There are some good points there. (although I suck) I too follow similar principles about working on my alg speeds as I did when trying to get faster on the guitar (economy of movement and such like). However there is a big difference, Cubing also has the Recognision/recollection component, where the more times you see a case (be it an F2L case or an OLL) the quicker you'll get at recognising it and remembering what to do. In that respect I find it to me more similar to language learning where immersion can be a lot better than just 10-15mins a day.


 
Hmm, language learning, interesting, I never thought of it that way but I think it's a fair point. And granted emersion certainly has it's part to play in recognition. 

I guess my point was simply quality over quantity but quality and quantity is even better.

"Economy of movement" - sounds like Malmsteen, love him or hate him, he certainly has mastered the guitar.

Cheers.


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