# New to blindfold...



## sammigal05 (May 22, 2007)

I just have a few questions to ask, and nothing about algorithims and stuff, more about mental prep.

I found a method I like and kinda changed it around to suit me, and I can now solve it fine not blindfolded, but the moment I lose sight of the cube I forget everything. Does anyone have any hints on how to move smoothly to blindfold? I've tried several methods, such as writing out everything and solving the cube under a towel. what would you suggest?


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## Inferno.Fighter.IV (May 22, 2007)

I'm not having any problems, but I also would like some tips.


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## cmhardw (May 22, 2007)

> *Does anyone have any hints on how to move smoothly to blindfold? I've tried several methods, such as writing out everything and solving the cube under a towel. what would you suggest?*



Think of your brain like a muscle for BLD cubing. What makes muscles stronger is to push them to the point where they fail, causing microscopic tearing of the tissue etc. etc. (I'm not a science person, so if this is wrong I apologize). Your brain works the same way, sort of. In order to get to where you feel more comfortable holding onto the memorized cube in your head without looking at your actual cube in your hands you have to repeatedly push your brain to the point where it fails. By fail I mean that you either can't recall the cube anymore, or you just can't seem to remember a part of what you memorized, etc..

When this happens, take the time to try to "dig deep" and recall that forgotten stuff anyway. If you put on the blindfold and can't seem to remember hardly any of the cube at all, then sit there for 5, 10, even 20 minutes trying to recall as much as you can before taking off the blindfold. Sure you may not remember much else, but repeatedly pushing your brain way past it's failure point will help make it easier to memorize next time.

Just my $0.02 - that's what I do for the bigger cubes BLD and it seems to work very well for building up not only speed of memorization, but speed of recall too.

Chris


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## dbeyer (May 22, 2007)

Certainly, I doubt anybody here got their first successful solve on the first attempt (in a reasonable amount of time, less than an hour for memo??)

I think that it's great that you personalized your methods to suit you! That's what it's all about, you may think your ideas to be of less importance because you've not solved the cube blindfolded yet, but in reality we all have good ideas, so take them all in.

Chris and I can both vouge for that! I suggest using a visual memory system at first. Look at the cube and memorize everything using rote memory. Sometimes you've just gotta put the blindfold on and see what you can do! Seriously you could amaze yourself. If you can do it once, you can do it again, and there is always room for improvement.

Chris and I have talked a lot about big cube blindfolded methods, and he's getting a consistent sub 7m average now, and I myself am cutting times, and running some tests on the cube myself!

We've shared so many ideas, and I've picked up a lot of his stuff, and he's picked up my concepts too! 

Try out bunches of things, if at first you don't succeed ... evaluate your errors, are they slight or major? Are you willing to overcome a big hurdle to perfect something that's going horribly wrong or are you going to cut your losses early on and try something different?


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## joey (May 22, 2007)

> _Originally posted by dbeyer_@May 22 2007, 05:41 AM
> * Certainly, I doubt anybody here got their first successful solve on the first attempt (in a reasonable amount of time, less than an hour for memo??) *


 My first was only two misoriented corners, in 5:24 

I suggest trying visual as dbeyer said. At first it might seem difficult, but it gets gradually easier. I'm still working on it.

One exercise you could try, is to memorise corners, then solve corners. Then memorise edges, and solve edges. Thats good help to working with your visual memory.

You don't need to memorise what the cube looked like, just remember where the pieces need to go. In your mind when you are solving, you should see the colours of the cubies in the cycle.

Just thought I'd share a little bit about my little experience of BLD. Its fun!


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## dbeyer (May 22, 2007)

> _Originally posted by joey_@May 22 2007, 07:34 AM
> * Just thought I'd share a little bit about my little experience of BLD. Its fun!
> *


 I read that twice, and I thought skimming had gotten the best of me. You did say a little bit about my little experience haha. 

Just a nice way to word it, I liked it.


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## joey (May 23, 2007)

Glad I amused you! 

daneil/chris: have you ever tried other memorisation forms, like cards?

I used to be interested in that, but never really got the technique down. I think I'm going to start trying it again.


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## cmhardw (May 23, 2007)

> *daneil/chris: have you ever tried other memorisation forms, like cards?*



I haven't to be honest. My memorization is literally crafted for the sole purpose of memorizing Rubik's cubes, so I'm missing things I would need to learn to memorize a deck of cards or pretty much any other memory sport event. Theoretically I wouldn't need to learn much else to memorize a deck, but I've been too lazy to learn it lol.

I do use the visual idea of how I memorize in other parts of my day though. For example to memorize phone numbers I memorize the first 3 digits via how I would punch them into the phone (does that shape look like a line, a diagonal, a "7", etc.) and for the last 4 digits I use my images from the cube. So for example 765-4321 would be the bottom left corner zigging across to the middle right and back to the center most key (a three-quarter sideways "V" shape, or most of a number "7"). For the 4321 I would turn this into letter pairs as (DC)(BA) and I would imagine a miniature version of the white house (DC) and a giant bagel (BA) rolls over it and crushes it.

I don't really practice anything memory related but Rubik's cubes. I guess I should get off my lazy butt and learn all the image pairs and try speed cards, but again I'd prefer to spend all my time on big cube BLD since I'm so horribly addicted to it lol. Seriously it's like my drug, it's hard to describe.

Just my $0.02
Chris


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## sammigal05 (May 24, 2007)

Hmmm these all sound pretty reasonable... LMAO i can't beleive I didn't try memorizing a section, solving it, then looking again and memorizing. So basic lol. Perhaps someday i'll be better, it takes lots of practice lol.

Thanks alot to everyone I hope to hear more!


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## Harris Chan (May 24, 2007)

I finally did it! After like a dozen tries (all DNF), i finally did a successful BLD, at 4 minutes 24.67 seconds. I think it was almost lucky..

I just purely look at the edges visually, and Pochman style edges, orient corners and do 2 cycle for corners (this way I just do T perm when I have parities)


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## joey (May 24, 2007)

Wow chan! That took like 6 minutes off your time!

Why do you orient, if you are going to do 2-cycles? Its just wastes time.


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