Just a note upfront, this is all based on my opinion and experiences, I’m interested to hear if people have different views and ideas.

1. Only practice when you want to.

Most, if not all cubers, solve cubes entirely for fun and enjoyment. Even the fastest guys in the world only practice because it’s fun, or alternatively, they enjoy being really competitive and the corresponding amount of practice that is required to do so.

Cubing should never be a chore, and I think that forcing yourself to practice isn’t a good mindset. You need to be self-motivated, and enjoy what you’re doing, and if you’re reading a cubing blog, then that’s probably a good sign that you like cubing. Practicing when you don’t really want to will only lead to frustration at bad solves, and sucks all the enjoyment out of speedcubing.

Personally, I find that the amount I practice can really vary – some days I’ll be too busy with other things to practice cubing, and on others, I’ll sit down and cube for several hours. Practicing heaps and heaps is fine as well, if you have enough free time and interest, I don’t think it’s possible to practice too much, assuming you don’t burn out.

2. “Breaks make you better” – Stefan Huber

Never be afraid to take some time off cubing. More often than not, I hear stories of people actually getting a PB average after not touching a cube for a week. I don’t really know how or why this happens, but it can definitely be beneficial to not cube for a short period of time.

For the most part, cubing is a cumulative activity, in that it’s very hard to regress and actually get slower, as you have already built up a certain level of skill. It doesn’t take too much effort to return to your former speed after taking a long break – not that I’ve taken many long breaks from cubing.

3. Conscious vs Subconscious practice

Noah Arthurs made a great video about this a year ago, where he divided cubing practice into two main categories. For simplicity, I’m going to call them conscious and subconscious practice.

Conscious practice is anything you do to improve your overall knowledge base and skill. Examples of this are:

  • Learning and practicing new algorithms
  • Learning new methods
  • Solving the cube in different ways, experimenting.
  • Watching example solves and figuring out your inefficiencies
  • Focusing on one aspect of your solves
  • Any sort of drill or practice that isn’t full solving.
  • Learning new fingertricks

I see subconscious practice as simply doing timed solves and averages, in which your only aim is to solve as fast as you can. Obviously in doing so you’ll be implementing things that you consciously learned, and over time they will be stored in your muscle memory.

I think it’s pretty important to get the ratio of conscious to subconscious practice right. If you’re satisfied and comfortable with your techniques and overall method, then you should probably be spending 90% of your time just subconsciously practicing. I definitely lean towards the view that the majority of your improvement comes from subconscious practice, as that is mainly how I improved. That being said, there are probably many people who would disagree.

Alternatively, if you’re wanting to fundamentally improve your solves and solve more efficiently, then you should spend a lot more time consciously practicing.

I would say that over 95% of my practice is subconscious practice, but don’t emulate that unless you’re really confident in your solving techniques and algorithms. As you get faster, more and more of your practice should be subconscious.

4. Practice schedules?

Never heard of them. This ties into the first point, you may not want to practice at certain times. Or, you may only want to practice 3x3 at a time you scheduled 5x5 practice.

Unless you really like routines and actually enjoy planning practice, then probably avoid this.

The closest thing I do to scheduling practice is planning which events I should practice over a certain timeframe, so I don’t neglect anything. If you do lots of events, something like this can be useful when preparing for a big competition. For smaller competitions, I’d recommend solely practicing the events being held in the 2 week period beforehand.

5. Don’t be discouraged by slow progress

As long as you’re practicing the right things, then all practice is good practice. If your times have been the same for several months, don’t worry at all. On the whole, improvement in cubing is very gradual, but is often characterised by relatively large jumps in your times. Obviously at the beginning, your improvement rate is quick, but the faster you get, the harder it becomes to improve.

Often you’ll have a long period where your times are stagnant, and it is easy to become discouraged. Just remember that the practice you’re doing eventually pays off, and it’s very common for your times to decrease by 1-2 seconds in a matter of days. I remember I was stuck at around 17-18 seconds for a while, and then over the course of a weekend, I was magically averaging 16 seconds.

 

Hope you enjoyed the read.

 

17 Kommentare

Gautam

Gautam

Hi Feliks
What method is used by u to solve 4×4

Rahul

Rahul

Hey Feliks
I want to ask you that how long did it take you to reach from 17 sec to 10 sec avg?

CSKuberzz

CSKuberzz

Hey Feliks, I’ve been trying to become colour neutral for the past couple of weeks as I felt really bad that I couldn’t follow your CN example solves videos. I can solve 4 colours now and I’m practising the fifth, but I still feel my times are a bit slower and my look ahead very limited. Will I be able to get back my old times if continue to practice CN.

Jordan

Jordan

How do you enter a competition? I really want to enter a comp.

epicuber7

epicuber7

Where were you at Sydney Autumn 2015???

Johnathon

Johnathon

Hey feliks thanks to you I have been inspired to become a cuber and have gotten my times down to 40 sec in just 4 months and have convinced many other people to get in to cubeing. cubing is now something I do every day and I’m loving it and it’s all thanks to you. But there is one thing that really puts me down many people say things to put me down like you have no social life or you must not have many friends it can make you fell depressed I wonder if you ever went through this. Thanks for being an insperation to many .

maximillian

maximillian

hey feliks, ive been a huge fan of you, I’m sub 20 and ; Want to improve. i was wondering if u can do more review’s? also can u do a 2×2 race agonist chris olson?

Joey Tarnowski

Joey Tarnowski

Thank you for such good speed cubing advice. I have only been cubing for a little over a month, but I have been trying to have the same progress you had when you started, and your videos and advice has helped me a lot. I already have a forty second average and I am rapidly improving. Thank you do much!

Walter Kullu

Walter Kullu

Feliks, i started cubing last year on May 2014 & now going to be one year i thank you as by watching your example solves videos i reduced my timing from 1:25min to 13.92s in 8 months which is PB & ao5:18.61s. Thank you. Your blog is quite nice.

Jamon

Jamon

Thanks Feliks, you really inspire me to practice at my hardest but also to have fun and I hope I can meet you at the Canberra Autumn Open 2015.

Troson

Troson

hey feliks I am Troson stay in India i am praticing the 3×3 for ‘bout 5 months but i can only solve it in 1:30 min your blog’s encouraging but could u advice me some better methods please thankx.

Alejandro Mera

Alejandro Mera

Hi Feliks, I’m from Chile, I started un this world the last december, I only have 3 months practicing. It’s very great to me read something like this because I feel like I can really improve my times. Thanks for your advices :)

Kenan

Kenan

I forgot my Rubik’s cube in my fathers car and he drove to work with it . I
got so bored and did random stuff all day, and by the way, I solved the cube in 1 minute and 5 seconds .when my father got back home at 5 pm I was so excited and I did a solve .It was in 56 seconds but now I can solve it in 24 seconds average. I know what you mean in step 2 because I’ve experienced it.

Ken Hunt

Ken Hunt

I really enjoyed this Feliks, thank you. It’s mostly all out there in some shape or form, but this article’s value is that it’s organized in an clear concise way and easy to understand. I also like your personal insights that give it your distinct voice / perspective.

Anas

Anas

Great. I enjoyed it a lot. Very useful.

Aayush Singh

Aayush Singh

I found this blog really helpful as I m stuck at 23 seconds average from past 4 months…. THANK YOU SO MUCH FELIKS ….. you are really a great motivator….. THANKS AGAIN…. (y) :)

Luis Felipe Hartmann

Luis Felipe Hartmann

Really good thoughts. But for me practice schedule actually works, becouse I wanted to practice but was spending to much time on other things and letting it to the next day, and since I started following my schedule I haven’t let one day pass without training all my main events and recording my mean at a spreadsheet to see my improvement in each event.

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