Daniel Evans

Why I started cubing

Daniel Evans (UK)

My mum taught me how to solve a cube in late 2012. After learning how to solve a cube, I got faster and faster than my mum, but I did not yet realise that I was a cuber as I had not met any other cubers yet. There was a younger kid at my primary school who learned how to solve it and when I tried his cube it was way faster, but soon I forgot about that until I entered secondary school. As I got to know more people at my new school, some shared an interest in cubes and I tried their cubes and they were faster, so I got faster cubes too. My time decreased so much, it nearly halved and this renewed my interest in cubes. At break I would race, but I never seemed to win.

I started up Cubing club and got a few new puzzles through trades and learned how to solve a Pyraminx, and the satisification of solving it without instructions was great; I had another puzzle to race with. But sadly at the end of the year this stopped. My friends stopped cubing, but I continued at it and my times decreased; I got solves below 15 seconds.

Slowly I solved my cubes less and less until I went to my first cubing competition, and it was brilliant to meet other cubers and talk to them and to compete, but I also realised that I was not that fast. At the competition though my cube corner twisted giving me a DNF, and I messed up a PLLand had to start almost all over again. My average was very bad, but I got better cubes and learned my PLLs – all of them and got faster. It has been 4 ½ years now and I do not regret cubing; it gives me something to do when I am bored and something to work for.