# Why You Shouldn't Cube Ambidextrous



## Smiles (Oct 2, 2016)

Part 1





Part 2





*F2L is fine, but this is super important for LL stuff though*
keep your algs right-hand dominant when possible

My last video is about finger tricks and how to optimize your algs:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxRLdzm7N5Y

these 2 videos and my future videos will be on *reducing* *regrips*, which will be very useful for you if you consider yourself mid-level or advanced


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## Rcuber123 (Oct 2, 2016)

Being ambidextrous isn't using both hands but having equal strength/with both hands(for example someone who writes equally with both hands). If both of your hands are equal there is no reason u shouldn't use both.


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## Smiles (Oct 2, 2016)

i get what you're saying but could you counter some of the points i made in the video? i had a feeling this video would be controversial



Rcuber123 said:


> If both of your hands are equal there is no reason u shouldn't use both.



actually i did give a reason. if i'm wrong then maybe you could convince me by addressing what i said


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## turtwig (Oct 2, 2016)

Being ambidextrous is not bad, using bad algs just because you are too lazy to learn algs is. Sometimes doing lefty algs are faster and sometimes they aren't, if you want to become faster you should try different algs and decide which one is best.


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## 1973486 (Oct 3, 2016)

wow this top cuber needs to stop moving his left thumb


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## PenguinsDontFly (Oct 3, 2016)

This basically renders ZZ useless. Also, Daniel Wannamaker uses many lefty LL algs (I'm pretty sure he's ambidextrous but slightly left hand dominant). If you feel that re-gripping your left thumb slows you down that much, you may as well switch to roux.


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## stoic (Oct 3, 2016)

Firstly, that's a well-made video. Good job.

My main gripe is with the tone you've taken. I've *never* heard anyone say you should try to avoid using one of your hands during LL before, yet you seem to be stating it on the video as if it's fact - and only later qualifying it on here with "i had a feeling this video would be controversial".

I'll leave it up to faster cubers than me to refute your main point - it actually has some merit, and you argue it well - but I'd note that some left-handed algs eg lefty Sunes are trivially easy to learn and quick to perform. Do you recommend avoiding them by learning alternatives or AUFing?

There are also a number of algs eg Bruno, T-perm I'd rather do with my left hand than have to AUF first (and also possibly have to AUF back). To me, that's faster than avoiding regripping altogether. 

It's an interesting discussion point, but I do thing you're wrong to have been so definitive with your conclusions.


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## tx789 (Oct 3, 2016)

I think people you seem to be aiming this video for, people just learning OLL and PLL have other things to work that will save then more time. Lookahead for example. Thinking about will probualy help however it's kinda point unless you average sub 10 or something. 

What if you want to be left hand dominant?


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## PenguinsDontFly (Oct 3, 2016)

tx789 said:


> I think people you seem to be aiming this video for, people just learning OLL and PLL have other things to work that will save then more time. Lookahead for example. Thinking about will probualy help however it's kinda point unless you average sub 10 or something.
> 
> What if you want to be left hand dominant?


Mirror your algs or do a Z' rotation and stay there the whole solve. Don't actually do that, but that's what righties do in OH . 

Exactly. Regrips don't start to matter until way after an average cuber is done learning OLL and PLL. I only started worrying about regrips last week when I noticed that I pause after CMLL to adjust my hand. My solution: relearn some algs. Was it hard? Not at all.


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## Silverback (Oct 3, 2016)

Just wanted to say, that I subscribed to your channel right after the first video. And I was very excited, when I saw, that you put out another one. I think, I am one of the people who your channel is made for and this particular video made me want to work on my plls. I never bothered learning the other J-Perm. I just did the lefty version.
Please keep up the good work. Your channel is very helpful.


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## genericcuber666 (Oct 3, 2016)

i use zz my regrips are almost instant i thaught after seeing this video it would matter but it dosent. even for last layer the lefty algs i use dont slow me down because if i see i need to do a lefty insert i start regripping whilst doing move so it dosent slow me down


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## Smiles (Oct 3, 2016)

kind of did a long post so i'll spoiler each reply




stoic said:


> My main gripe is with the tone you've taken. I've *never* heard anyone say you should try to avoid using one of your hands during LL before, yet you seem to be stating it on the video as if it's fact





Spoiler



Thanks stoic for your constructive feedback.
before i continue with more argument points, i want to say that if a future video of mine is more on the side of opinion rather than consensus, i will try to make the tone of the video reflect that.



stoic said:


> some left-handed algs eg lefty Sunes are trivially easy to learn and quick to perform. Do you recommend avoiding them by learning alternatives or AUFing?



sune + antisune has a total of 8 angles, and you can do 4 algs that are 2-gen <R,U>, which means the most you'd have to AUF is a quarter turn to avoid lefty algs, if you really wanted to avoid them.



Spoiler



in theory, if both of your thumbs are on the F face upon seeing sune, you could choose either hand to do sune.
but if one of your thumbs is on the D face, then you would avoid regripping by doing sune with that hand. i dont really want to explain this further cause it's a bit confusing to type. you can ask me about it.
additionally, you're a bit more likely to finish F2L with your dominant hand, so being consistent and doing right handed sunes is preferable. but it doesn't matter much at all for sunes.





stoic said:


> There are also a number of algs eg Bruno, T-perm I'd rather do with my left hand than have to AUF first (and also possibly have to AUF back). To me, that's faster than regripping.



for OLL, it really just depends on where your hand starts and finishes. *if you do a lefty alg and you do not have to regrip before or after the alg, then it's totally optimal*


Spoiler



for bruno, you start and finish with your thumb on F, so as you have noticed, it doesn't really matter which hand you do it with.
for T perm, i used to mirror the alg to avoid AUF, but now i just ignore AUF and begin the regular T perm no matter what AUF. if i need to do U2 AUF at the end, i just switch to this alg instead: (R U R' U' R' F R2 U' R') U F' L' U L




the cases you mentioned are actually pretty ok. the examples i had in the video are the more important examples, such as mirroring R perm and J perm, or other random OLL algs that i didn't mention. you can totally get away with it and be a super fast cuber, but often it's not the best thing to do.

the "try not to use ambidextrous algs" thing is a guideline to aid in reducing regrips. *being ambidextrous is good, but doing regrips is not good. *if you can do a lefty alg without regripping before or after the alg, then don't worry about it. maybe i'll make a followup video with more info and a clarification on this, idk





tx789 said:


> I think people you seem to be aiming this video for, people just learning OLL and PLL have other things to work that will save then more time. Lookahead for example. Thinking about will probualy help however it's kinda point unless you average sub 10 or something.
> 
> What if you want to be left hand dominant?





Spoiler



i didnt specify here, but in the video description and channel description i wrote that i generally target my videos for people who consider themselves mid-level to advanced (and beyond, i guess). you're absolutely right that regrips don't matter much until you're at a high level.

if you want to be left hand dominant then everything is the same except pretend you live inside the mirror world or something where left means right and vice versa





Silverback said:


> Just wanted to say, that I subscribed to your channel right after the first video. And I was very excited, when I saw, that you put out another one. I think, I am one of the people who your channel is made for and this particular video made me want to work on my plls. I never bothered learning the other J-Perm. I just did the lefty version.
> Please keep up the good work. Your channel is very helpful.





Spoiler



Thanks so much, it means a lot to me! but as you can see from this thread, my ideas may not always be the most agreeable or correct, so make sure you decide for yourself if my ideas are worth practicing. i appreciate the support 





PenguinsDontFly said:


> Exactly. Regrips don't start to matter until way after an average cuber is done learning OLL and PLL. I only started worrying about regrips last week when I noticed that I pause after CMLL to adjust my hand. My solution: relearn some algs. Was it hard? Not at all.





Spoiler



yeah regrips aren't the biggest of problems in terms of saving time until you're advanced, but it's still something; just a bit of optimization. my take on the topic is that it's important for cubers to be aware of trying to reduce regrips this way, once they reach a high enough level for it to matter, or even before it matters so that it becomes a good habit later on.
idk, i wanna say that this topic is rarely talked about simply because the idea gets neglected, but obviously it's possible that i'm just wrong and it's mostly negligible. it did help me out a lot so i wanted to spread the idea out there.


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## PenguinsDontFly (Oct 3, 2016)

Smiles said:


> yeah regrips aren't the biggest of problems in terms of saving time until you're advanced, but it's still something; just a bit of optimization. my take on the topic is that it's important for cubers to be aware of trying to reduce regrips this way, once they reach a high enough level for it to matter, or even before it matters so that it becomes a good habit later on.
> idk, i wanna say that this topic is rarely talked about simply because the idea gets neglected, but obviously it's possible that i'm just wrong and it's mostly negligible. it did help me out a lot so i wanted to spread the idea out there.


I think a lot of what you said makes sense. You should always be looking to start and end your algs in a "neutral" position with your hands either thumbs on front, or something like 1 thumb on front and 1 on either the U layer or D layer. The beauty of CFOP last layer is that there is usually an AUF before PLL. Then, if one of your hands is out of position, the other hand can AUF (U/U'/U2, you should be able to do all 3 moves with both hands), and that gives your other hand time to regrip. This idea is actually something I've been playing around with for a while, and I've wanted to share it. I think it's especially useful and worth thinking about in 2x2 (layer/face to EG alg transition, and post-alg AUF), as well as any 3x3 last layer algorithm sets (whether it is CFOP LL or roux CMLL or ZZ special stuff).


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## Smiles (Oct 3, 2016)

you use roux?

for roux the "neutral position" seems like a nice idea to prepare for MU since u always need both thumbs on F

for cfop it's not as big of a deal since getting your OLLs to always end the same and getting PLLs to always start the same is not practical.

in general, I think many algs are hard to change in terms of considering step-transition regrips. but most of the time u can do it, espcially for sets that are less pure, such as OLL or CMLL, rather than something more pure like like COLL or CMLL+EO subsets

for roux, you know that LSE will have your left ring/middle fingers about to do M (perhaps AUF before it) so imo it's pretty important to have right hand dominant cmlls as standard algs. if u learn extra algs for special edge cases (much like learning zbll for cfop) then mirroring an alg for the easy recall or just to have a better alg is probably better than learning a right handed alg


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## stoic (Oct 4, 2016)

@Smiles thanks for your comprehensive answer!
You've obviously thought about it a great deal, and you've certainly given me much to think about and work on.


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## Smiles (Oct 4, 2016)

no problem! im actually gonna make a part 2 to clarify some things


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## Smiles (Oct 7, 2016)

update: part 2 is posted in the first post


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