Before I even started cubing, my life was kind of boring.
School was uninteresting, I didn't fit in with my friends and classmates, I used to
be lonely and would always be alone with my books.
I wanted to escape this boredom, and suddenly one fine day, a ray of light dawned into my
dark world and helped me ease my boredom, which was the Rubik's cube.
I instantly got interested in it as it was fun.
There were so many patterns that I could see while solving the cube, and there were method
also which were researched well, and most of all, when I started cubing, it baffled
me how people could solve the impossible cube in 5 seconds.
I have always believed that I never wanted to become someone else.
I wanted to be myself and surpass them, and with this in mind, I set a goal, solve the
cube consistently in less than 10 seconds.
Initially, I was not well versed with the different method for solving the cube.
I used the one which majority used, CFOP and got faster with it.
In 2 years, I became sub 10 and accomplished my initial goal.
My progress was pretty great, sub 20 in 3 months, but I took a break here which makes
me sub20 in 4 months.
Sub15 in 8-9 months and sub 10 in 2 years with long breaks in between ranging from 2-3
months.
During my journey, I did stumble upon Roux method when Alex used it at Euro 2014.
At that time, I let ignorance take over me thinking "Roux method is not that great.
Most of the world class solvers use CFOP" and turned a blind eye towards Roux and continued
getting faster with CFOP.
Once I hit sub 10, boredom took hold of me once more.
I had achieved my goal, hence now I didn't know what to do next.
I never had plans for becoming world class, or going to competitions, or doing big cubes
etc.
My only goal had been accomplished and now I was empty once more.
One night when I was sleeping, I visualized something.
I was using Roux and I genuinely enjoyed it.
I again turned a blind eye using the same self justification as before, fast cubers
use CFOP.
Roux is not that good, otherwise people would have used it.
However, whenever I have visions like this, my intuition becomes restless.
To ease this restlessness, I researched into Roux.
I was already solving with CFOP for 2 and half years till now and had no intention to
switch back.
Roux had some strong points, and the one that caught my eye was, with Roux you have the
ability to turn slower than CFOP solvers, yet get faster or similar times with them.
At that point I thought that we are all humans and we will hit a cap in our TPS.
If both CFOP and Roux hits the same cap, Roux will fetch me faster times due to its efficiency.
Another thing that caught my eye was its intuitive style of solving and also its rotationless
approach.
I was in dilemma and turmoil at this point.
One part of me wanted to use Roux and see how it goes, but another part of me was saying
that I have spent 2 and half years with CFOP, it will be counter productive to switch now
and lose all that progress.
Instead of listening to my rational brain, I listened to my intuition this time.
My intuition said to start using Roux and see how it goes, which is what I did.
I switched to Roux at the end of last year.
My Roux journey hasn't been smooth.
The first hurdle was block building and I despised block building in the beginning as
my brain was accoustomed to doing it f2l style.
I had to break my old CFOP habits and solve it in Roux style.I stopped using CFOP and
only used Roux.
I learned how to lookahead in a way Roux solvers did.
The journey was very steep, but I made progress.
Once I had the basics of Roux down, I started practicing with timer.
First 2 months, I just worked on breaking my old habits and replacing it with Roux habits.
My progress for first 2 months was pretty stagnant.
Once I had Roux habits in my muscle memory, I made quick progress.
The best thing that I like about Roux is its intuitiveness and the freedom it gives me.
LSE is the most free step according to me where I can do whatever I want.
I made my own method for solving LSE, looking at the patterns that I observed while solving,
and the next couple of months, I made my LSE method perfect so that I didn't have to pause
during LSE.
I also watched tons of walkthrough solves for learning block building and practiced
with block trainer as well.
I was finally confident that I know about both the method in detail, and its time to
make a decision, if I want to continue with CFOP or if I want to switch to Roux.
I was averaging 9 seconds at that time and for getting faster from here, I will need
to improve my lookahead and tps, and also learn more algorithms for LL and learn f2l
tricks here and there and get used to making X-crosses.
For Roux, lookahead and tps didn't play that huge of a role as Roux relies on efficiency
rather than TPS.
I would need around 6 TPS to average 8 seconds with Roux, and 6 TPS was pretty common for
me in CFOP, hence lookahead and TPS were not a problem.
Also, with Roux, I didn't have to learn more algorithms.
With basic Roux and CMLL, you can be sub 8.
I only had to get better at blocks and be efficient at them, as my LSE was pretty great
at this moment.
The only con was that I would lose 2 and half years of progress which made me reluctant
to switch to Roux, however progress with Roux is much more faster than progress with CFOP,
hence I will be able to get back to my CFOP times at around 6 months.
Before I made my final decision, I just asked myself "which method do I think is more fun?"
and I replied "Roux".
At that point I thought, if I continued with CFOP, I would be miserable as I didn't like
learning algs and I was tired of practicing my lookahead and increasing TPS.
I didn't learn any algs after learning OLL and PLL, and knew some COLL cases and From
sub 15 to sub 10, I only improved lookahead and tps, nothing more than that.
Also, if I continued with CFOP, I would be bored and I might quit cubing for good and
go back to my books.
Once I had measured objective analysis, and also measured my feelings regarding the methods,
I chose to switch to Roux, mainly because it was fun and it would keep boredom at bay
for a longer time.
The ecstacy that I felt when I invented my own LSE method was too great.
If I used CFOP, I probably wont feel like that, but with Roux, which was not as researched
as CFOP, it gave me an opportunity to find things by myself and relive that experience
once more.
It was as clear as the day what I wanted to do.
Without crying over my lost 2 and half years of progress and choosing to walk an inefficient
and counter productive path towards Roux, my inntuition assured me that this was a wise
decision and there is no need to look back and doubt myself.
Since then, I have used Roux.
I am currently near sub 10 with Roux and also recently got 6 sec Roux PB solve with it.
My Roux solves are more fluid than my CFOP solves and I overall like Roux more than CFOP.
I personally never cared much about big cubes, or other puzzles or going to comps, hence
why I only have 3x3 besides me.
My new goal is to become sub 8 with Roux method as soon as I can, and find new and interesting
things and create my own variations that will improve
the Roux method.