How things change
So, there I was. Looking to start logging my progress in Juggling, what a great reason to start a blog, share techniques and compete with fellow jugglers to improve quicker. Now, 3 years later, I haven’t touched a juggling ball for months, and 5 is a struggle (I know that sounds good to some people, but I used to juggle 5 as warm up). My hobbies have shifted and changed, my interests have ermm, damn, thought I was on a roll there. Anyway, what I’m saying is I have new things that take up my time that I can scribble about.
First of those new things is my cubing/twisty puzzles. Now this is something that started just over a year ago, I stumbled onto a youtube video on how to solve a Rubik’s cube, it intrigued me. I downloaded some program for my PC that allowed me to twist this virtual cube about. I hadn’t actually watched the video yet, I thought I would test my ability. 3+ hours later, I had managed to complete one side properly and was trying to work out how to do the next layer (I had decided going through the layers was smart, apparently I was actually right). Sometime the next day I was trying to solve the final layer, this was a bitch. I couldn’t move or rotate any pieces without screwing up the puzzle. It was here I cheated, and I feel bad about that moment.
Anyway, I can now solve a Rubik’s cube (3x3x3) in about ~30s with a very basic technique. I have 2 of these (3x3x3 Cubes), one I currently have a weird sticker pattern on that makes it a bit tougher (some pieces can swap in ways that makes the puzzle looks unsolvable). The hobby obviously doesn’t stop there. I have a 2x2 a 4x4, 2 5x5s, a 6x6 and a 7x7. I can solve them all easily, the challenge is no longer there. So, what else have I got? Well, a 3x3x3 with no centers (void cube: causes some more unsolvable looking situations), a single colour 3x3x3 which changes shape (bump cube/mirror blocks), a square-1,a megaminx (first non cubic puzzle),2 mastermorphixes (awesome puzzle), a 2x2x4 (cubic puzzles confuse me still), a golden cube (owned it for over a year, still can’t solve it) and a gear cube (this is awesome). I also have on the way: A skewb,a hex skewb,a pyraminx,a helicopter cube, another 3x3 and a jing pyraminx
I’ll go into these puzzles in detail over time, and talk about my other new hobbies a bit tomorrow :)
