If you’ve read the other posts on this blog or known me for any length of time, you know that I like cubing. It’s not a secret that a little block of plastic, 2 inches to a side, has kept me occupied for well over a decade now. The last I checked, my solve time – counting only when the timer was running – totaled over 170 hours. (For context, 168 hours make a week.) That’s not including the time spent scrambling or inspecting before a solve; all the time I’ve simply had a cube on hand while walking, talking, sitting, or standing; or all the years before I started consistently tracking this data. I’ve been to competitions, met some world-class solvers, and made some incredible memories.
For years, I’ve only had one cubing goal – one solve under 10 seconds. That’s it. Like Chuck Yeager chasing the sound barrier or Edmund Hillary pursuing Everest’s crest, sub-10 has been the ultimate dream. Granted, I’m no Yeager or Hillary – I wouldn’t be the first to reach this mark. Nearly seven thousand individuals have recorded a sub-10 time in competition. But I wasn’t content to live vicariously through the achievements of others. I wanted sub-10 for myself.
I’ve joked for some time that once I reached sub-10, I would retire from the sport. I knew that sub-10 would be my pinnacle; there was no going further than that. The only milestone greater is sub-5, rarefied air that fewer than forty people on the planet have officially claimed.
So, with 9.99 seconds (or better) on my mind, I solved. And solved. And solved. In December 2019, I laid out a roadmap for myself on this blog, detailing specific steps I would need to follow in order to reach a sub-15 average and a sub-10 single. I practiced specific algorithms, etching them into my muscle memory. I slowed down, taking the time to understand why certain steps were taking longer than they should. I came close with several 10.xx-second solves, culminating in a 10.12 last month. But almost-sub-10 doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, does it? So, I solved. And solved. And solved.
Until today.
I didn’t just break sub-10; I shattered it. I would have been content with a 9.xx time, but I skipped that and went straight to 8. I’m not one to brag, but this would have been a world record 13 years ago.
How Did I Do It?
As cheesy as the answer is, practice was the biggest determiner of my success. But that answer is an oversimplification. As any great athlete will tell you, practice must be deliberate. Repetition does not bring the outcome you want; consciously recognizing your mistakes and correcting them is what counts. As I said before, I laid out a game plan. If I felt like picking up a cube, I made sure to include some time drilling the fundamentals, not just solving.
The second great contributor was learning from others. No one does great things in isolation and cubing is no exception. I watched tutorials. I learned how to grip the cube when executing specific algorithms. A few months ago, I shared a video of a set of my solves to a cubing community. Within hours, I received advice on everything from re-tensioning the cube itself to how I was solving the final layer. Taking that advice to heart dropped my average almost a full second and made sub-10 even more realizable.
What Now?
Am I going to retire from cubing now? I doubt it. I’ve met some amazing people through the cubing world, learned a lot about life from the camaraderie the community shares, and plan on volunteering at future competitions. I’m not going to dedicate as much time to cubing as I have in the past because it’s time for new adventures, new goals, new challenges. I assumed that reaching sub-10 would close the book on my cubing journey. But today, I’ve come to realize that The End is not the end. It’s just the beginning.