Looking ahead

Below 20 seconds, it’s not your fingers slowing you down anymore, it’s your pauses. Between two F2L pairs, most cubers lose half a second searching: four pairs, two seconds.

“Lookahead” means looking for the next pair while your hands finish the previous one. An insert like R U R’ needs no looking: your eyes are free to search elsewhere.

To learn it, turn much more slowly than usual, but never stop. If you have to stop, you’re going too fast for what your eyes can do.

The metronome makes the exercise concrete: one move per beat, at a slow tempo. Only raise the tempo once a whole solve goes by without a pause.

Remember: A slow solve with no pauses is often faster than a fast solve full of stops.

Troubleshooting

I still stop between pairs

Lower the tempo even more. At first, 1 move per second is normal.

I don’t know where to look

During an insert on the right, look at the left face and the top: that’s where the next pair hides most often.