I DID IT. [Rubik's Cube Competition 2021]

Oh , I did it finally .

It's been a year and a half .

I had a competition this weekend for the first time since early , last year before the pandemic .

Let's get one thing out of the way .

I did terribly in three by three and it didn't make finals .

I guess .

I'm just an old washed up cuber now , except recently , I've mainly been practicing three by three blindfolded and that's where we get to .

The thing that I did .

Here's a little preview .

I got a really good blindfolded time , which was even better considering the state I was in during that solve .

And I'll talk more about the solve later .

But first , I want to explain what was going on in this competition .

If you look at a competition schedule that doesn't actually tell you when the competition begins .

It really begins the night before the competition .

When you can't sleep .

I was really nervous for the competition and my sleep schedule is not ready for me to wake up that early .

So I ended up only getting about two good hours of sleep .

So , yeah , the competition was ruined for me before I even got there .

Then in three by three .

I get a mid nine average to begin with , which was actually not bad considering I got two elevens and for one of these elevens I really messed up .

And if I didn't , I might have gotten a pretty good average .

But overall I don't really even care because I wasn't practicing three by 31 bit for the competition .

Next were events that I don't do and lunch .

So I went to my car and I took a nap for 30 minutes which makes my total night sleep .

Now , two hours and 30 minutes .

Oh , jeez , there's still the rest of the competition to go next up was four by four .

I didn't really practice this either , but I did surprisingly well and got my best average in competition and I got a 29 2nd solve , which I actually thought was my first sub 30 in competition , but turns out it wasn't and I had a better one before this .

But I guess sometimes ignorance is bliss because I got to relive that experience again .

I think this is pr is it ?

Uh I think so .

Kristen , I got to 7 30 after you told me .

Good luck .

I'm so proud .

It actually works .

I'm proud .

And who knows ?

Maybe one day I'll get my first official sub 34 by four solve for the third time overall .

These solves were just very lucky with not very many parodies and that's actually part of why I don't like four by four because even though I have been better than this in competition before just getting fewer parodies actually leads to better averages .

And it's so luck based next up , there was three by three round two and I don't even want to talk about the , this average just felt so bad .

I wasn't focused at all and I had a counting 9 , 10 and 10 and somehow this ended up being a sub 10 average .

I thought it was gonna be like mid 10 .

You know , this is kind of what just happens .

Once you are a sub 10 , it's hard to get an average above 10 anymore .

Like it didn't look like it was gonna be sub 10 , but it still was , you know what gives math anyway , three by three was done .

I wasn't even close to making finals .

So let's just move on to something that actually matters .

Thank you .

Judge .

Next was five by five .

So I had already spent half of my day at the competition on 2.5 hours of sleep and I hadn't even done a single solve of something I cared about yet .

So the pressure was on .

OK ?

I was so nervous that I forgot to start the camera before saying ready .

But then I already saw the cube .

So I thought uh I gotta pick up the cube now .

So my first solve wasn't recorded .

At least not by me .

This was Max Shaw's stream .

So thank you for streaming all the competitions you go to because I often find some good footage of me here .

OK ?

You guys can't see anything .

The result I got from my first solve was one minute and it felt like a 58 when I finished which meant that I was spending two extra seconds being nervous and that's really not good because I wanted a sub one average and it looks like this is gonna be the difference between sub one and not sub one .

Then I started my next solve and I remembered something recently practicing at home .

I had actually started averaging slightly over a minute and it was really annoying because I averaging like 58 and I had no clue what changed .

But then a few days right before the competition , I started averaging 57 again .

And what made that difference was actually just remembering to think about the color order of the centers during cross edges .

So on five by five , I use the Yao method and when you make the cross edges , you have to get them in the right order on the side .

And sometimes I take time to look at where a piece should go , which impedes my ahead .

And sometimes I forget that you're not supposed to do that .

And before this next solve , I really reminded myself to think hard about that during cross edges .

And I ended up getting a really good time this solve ended up being 52 seconds .

I don't get times like this very often and getting it in competition while I was super , super nervous was definitely a huge confidence booster .

The rest of the average had its ups and downs , but I ended up with a 57.4 to average which destroys my old average of one minute .

You can see after getting this , I was so happy and also so relieved just because I had no clue how I would perform in a competition after a year and a half off .

But this definitely proved to myself that I could still perform in an event I cared about .

Uh feels good .

I can now say five by five is one of my main events again .

And this average now puts me at number 105 in the world .

First of all , this was great , but this was not even the highlight of the competition .

So that's how well this competition went for me and second , that's what I got second place , ok ?

In case you guys don't know , Maddie doesn't usually show up to our competitions .

So I basically got first .

No , but he is amazing at three by three and in case you don't know what I mean by that world class .

Before competing in five by five .

Maddie actually came up to me and asked me what I average in five by five and I said about 57 seconds and he said , oh , you might beat me .

Then I thought to myself , probably not .

But that would be cool .

And then he gets a 51 and wins the competition .

Like , are you serious ?

That's not even close .

I've never gotten any average like that , ever .

Maddie .

You absolute liar .

Nah , I'm just kidding , Maddie .

You're great .

Remember me when you get that world record average three by three blindfolded right after square one .

You know , thank God there was square one in the schedule right there because that gave me just enough time to practice blindfolded before going into for these blindfolded solves .

I was more nervous than for anything I've done before .

And I've talked about this before I practiced and learned a new method starting in the beginning of the pandemic .

Not knowing competitions were not coming back for a while and I was on 2.5 hours of sleep already having done a bunch of solves .

And on top of all that , the format for three by three blindfolded is you get three solves .

I waited a year and a half to get three salts .

No wonder so many good blinders just quit cubing .

Like I , I feel it now .

This is a really unforgiving event .

Why did I even make this my main event ?

I didn't really think it through .

So on the first solve .

I actually did really well except for one thing , just one thing ruined this entire solve .

So a quick recap on how blindfolded memorization works .

I have a letter for each side of each piece on the cube .

And I use those to create words and I memorize those words and that's how you memorize the cube .

Now , what I had to memorize for a particular part of this solve was co and for Co I use Coke like Coca Cola , not like the other kind of Coke for Co , I used to picture coal , but then I switched it to Coke because it worked better .

And in that moment , I forgot that it was Coke .

I thought for a few seconds and I could not remember what co was supposed to be .

So I did the smart thing and I just used coal because I still remember that I can use that .

But then when we get around to execution , I learned that there was a reason I switched off of coal .

I forgot the memorization right at that point because coal is not very memorable .

No wonder I switched it to something else .

So I paused when trying to memorize it .

And then I paused because I forgot what I memorized later on .

So it ended up being not a good solve by my standards .

And it was really just because of one thing and that made me extra nervous .

Although there was also something else that made me less nervous and this is actually huge .

I'm going to show you exactly what made me less nervous .

So this is my blindfold and this right here that you saw me wearing these block out noise and they are just earmuffs so I could barely hear anything , especially because during blindfolded events in a competition , they tell everyone to be quiet .

So um if you're having a conversation near me , I can still kind of hear you , but this blocked out just any ambient noise and the sound of people turning next to me , those make me really nervous as well .

I was looking down at the cube and I made sure that these would cover the top half of my eyes .

I couldn't see anyone in the competition when I did this and that actually helped with my nerves so much .

And that was exactly how I composed myself for the next solve .

It's beautiful .

Oh , man , I felt such a rush and so relieved , but I couldn't make a big reaction out of it because you're supposed to be quiet .

And that's why all you get is the fist bump .

But from everything that I said about earlier than the competition and before the competition .

And also what happened in the soul right before this and the entire year and a half that I didn't get to compete .

I think this really paints a picture as to why this meant so much to me .

When I looked down and saw the 25 seconds at that moment , the competition was over for me .

I still had one more solve that I focused in and tried to do well on , but the scramble was so bad and I forgot the memorization at some point .

So it's fine .

I got ad NF looks like my average is still gonna have to be two minutes for now .

But my 25.36 2nd single solve puts me at number 105 in the world which ties for five by five .

And so I guess these are kind of like both my main events equally good now , except for fewest moves where it says I'm really good .

But I also got lucky and now I'm retired forever .

Oh , wow .

It's finally over .

I actually won .

I do that here .

Am I allowed to go up there ?

I don't think so .

They can trust my judgment software , Chris .

Well , well , if it isn't Brian's son , he'll find a way to upload a video before his next .

So here we have Max Straw in his natural habitat .

Every competition ever give me my podiums back the idea as a four .

If he counts the four , I don't know how good the average would be .

Might actually be world record .

No , I'm not sure .

Oh , that might be .

Well , wait , it's 4 92 and two low sixes , right ?

So it's like a 6.0 and a 6.15 68 5 68 .

Close to that .

That's amazing .

Good job Maddie .

Maddie .

Congrats , bro .

I should probably sanitize my hands .

I still had to drive home and then drive back the next day because , oh , did I mention this was a two day competition ?

Except they were two different competitions ?

So not really , the competition had 100 competitors , but it was just 50 on Saturday and 50 on Sunday .

Now , the reason I competed on Saturday was because me and my friend Kevin Matthews were both very good at blindfolded .

We wanted to split the podium and not have the pressure of racing each other .

So he just picked different days and he wanted Sunday .

So after I picked Saturday , I found out I'm in the same competition as Maddie Max Straw who steals all my podiums and Brendan who I didn't know before the competition but turns out was also really good at blindfolded .

And that put me just on the harder day for every single event .

But with that being said , I'm still happy I competed on Saturday because the three by three blindfolded second scramble was great .

Here's the scramble for the second solve and for blindfolded , I use the Dian Tanyon version one , I started by memorizing the corner pieces and I use U as the buffer .

Sorry if you use UF R , like most people use three style , but I mirrored everything .

This is red of red , white , green .

So that went here , which is the letter M for me .

And then this goes here which is V , this goes to the buffer again .

So I started a new cycle .

And for MV , I have an image for every letter pair .

And for me , this one is Maverick or Logan Paul's bird .

Don't worry .

Loading , Paul is nowhere in my memorization .

He just had a very memorable bird when I start a new cycle , I usually go here , but then I noticed it was solved .

So then I usually go here or here .

And at this time , I don't know why I just chose this .

This is the letter G and then that goes to here which is SGS is grass .

Then this goes back to G and that solves this piece .

So then I start a new cycle and this is the letter B GB is globe and then this is O and then N for onyx and that is it for corner memorization .

Next went to edges and I start with the UF buffer .

So this white blue goes here , which is the letter A and this goes to here , which is G and instead of using letter pair images , I just say out what I get , but I have preplanned words .

So for a G I say ARG , so this is where I use audio memorization .

And you can actually see the part in the solve where I change from visual to audio memo and it actually goes much faster .

So if you're doing blindfolded and you don't use audio memo yet , I highly recommend changing .

Then this goes to here which is M and V .

So that's move .

And then UE , which is Y because I don't use U as the first letter , I would just change it into A Y .

Then this goes here which is J and S so Jess and then this actually is the buffer .

So I'm done except for two flipped edges , then I solve edges next because audio memorization doesn't last as long in memory .

And I actually went for the two edges first because just seeing the pieces last even less time .

So I did this algorithm to solve the two back edges as a flip .

Then I go into the regular edge execution using three style which solves two pieces at once .

First is A G and I'm not going to explain this too much because either you know it or you don't , but they're all intuitive and it's gonna be fast .

So then this is MV .

So we have the buffer to M interchange and undo and then UE set up like this into a four mover and then undo and then Js so put the buffer here and then it's this commentator .

All right , then I had corners .

So this is MV , I do a three move setup like this to put them here , do the commutator and then undo the setup then is GS very easy insert here .

D and then take it out and undo then GB also a pure commentator .

And then , oh and to be honest , I don't even know the logic for this one .

I just memorized it as an algorithm overall , there were eight letter pairs and two flipped edges which are also solved in one algorithm for a total of nine algorithms .

I think around 10 to 11 algorithms is the average .

So nine is quite lucky .

And another way that I got lucky is you can see after I pick up the cube , it randomly just showed up with a white top and green front , which is the orientation that I already use that saved about another second .

I did waste one second of moving my blindfold down because I don't know how to nod done .

And I wasn't about to learn it right before the competition .

But mark my words , I will learn to nod done by next time after competing on Sunday , some friends and I went to a restaurant and as we were about to leave , one of the waitresses recognized me and uh had , let's say a very unique reaction .

And that was fun because that was actually only the second time I've ever been recognized in public .

Like obviously I go to competitions and people recognize me , but just out and about that was only the second person .

So shout outs to Mia for making it an extra interesting day .

And uh that is it for this video .

I am absolutely exhausted .

I'm gonna go rest , see you guys next time and in first place as the winner of BC Cuban comeback .

A 2021 we have Maddie with the result of 5.68 seconds .

2021 competition .

B uh , today Samir A with 6.81 .

Congratulations on you .

And in first place you have length from the result of 25.36 seconds .

Nice .

What do you call a territorial dispute with cows that don't have legs ?

Ground beef .

Come on .

Yeah .