30s to 40s Times

  • Cross - < 5 seconds
  • F2L - 15-20 seconds
  • Last Layer - < 12 seconds

Practise

This is quite a hard barrier to break past. Ideally you need to be committed to cubing to get past this bracket. For 1 week (7 consecutive days in a row) try to do 100-250 solves a day and be sure to log every single on of them on a timer application on your phone/computer or even the old fashioned way with a pen and paper, this is a good way to track how fast you’re getting over the days.

Learn FULL PLL

There are 2 different ways to do PLL. 1-Look and 2-Look. Full PLL is 1-Look and is a lot faster than its 2-Look counterpart. We have a good resource for learning full PLL which can be found here (link). We also have an OLL/PLL Training application which is available on the iOS app store (named Kewbz trainer). 1-Look PLL coupled with some proper finger trick execution can really help get your times down. Be sure to watch some videos on YouTube of different cubes finger tricks for the more popular algorithms.

Start learning FULL OLL

Much like PLL, there are 2 ways to execute OLL. 2-Look OLL and 1-Look OLL. We suggest to break past the 30 second barrier you need to start learning full 1-look OLL. We have a good guide on this coming soon. Until then we also have an application available on iOS devices called "Kewbz Trainer".

Confident F2L Execution

As you’re starting to get faster at speed cubing now, you need to make sure you are happy and confident in one of the hardest parts of solving, F2L. This is the hardest and most long winded part to learn. Cross + F2L for a 30 to 40 second solve should probably be around the 18-25 second mark and the rest will be the last layer (OLL and PLL).

See where to Improve

Do 10-20 different solves and split everything (Cross/F2L/OLL/PLL), log these times and see which section you need to improve. Most likely, F2L will be the longest section and one of the hardest to actually improve. Most of the F2L section is all about lookahead and planning the next pair whilst solving the current pair (the 'practise lookahead' below will help with F2L).

Practise Lookahead

Do the cross as normal and then plan your first pairing. Close your eyes and try to execute the pairing and inserting correctly. Keep doing this until you can confidently pair all 4 corners/edges with only looking briefly between pairs. Fancy a challenge? Try to solve 2 pairs with your eyes closed. You can take as long as you want to inspect it.

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