Why We Cube | A Speedcubing Documentary

I do remember watching him very carefully that first year to make sure is this pressure too much because he put so much pressure on himself he does not need pressure from me he does not need pressure elsewhere I met Lauren when we weren't quite dating yet she was like really interested in the cube because actually the first day she met me she googled my name I asked him the next day I was like hey what's this thing do you actually know how to solve one of these things I volunteered to want to play the violin but when I was when I was a kid I was often you know forced to to practice long hours After lawschool I basically said look family like I already went to law school I gave up my cubing career for it I lost my chance my only chance to be to be number one in the world which is the only thing I like really really really really really really wanted we weren't there for cubing we weren't there for the competition at all Our primary goal for going to cubing competitions was a big giant playdate A socialization developing playdate that's all it was Why We Cube Narrated by Feliks Zemdegs Cubers prepare for inspection Three Two One Go! please place your hands on the timers Ready Set Go And the win goes to Germany! Speedcubing, or speedsolving, is a hobby or sport where an individual solves twisty puzzles as quickly as possible Generally, in a competitive format, individuals are timed for five solves. The best and worst times are removed and the remaining three times are averaged to determine the cuber's performance. sometimes in competition you can get a difficult puzzle scramble that may require a cuber to compensate with quick turning speed at other times scrambles can be easier and individuals must take advantage of this by relying on efficiency and look ahead which means luck can certainly play a big role in speedcubing but for some luck can be an art for the many different theories tactics and approaches that exist for speedcubing there seem to be an equal amount of unique individuals that make up this community for some speedcubing is a hobby And for others It can define who they are today over 100,000 speed cubers have participated in competitions around the world and with this ever-growing number of speed solving enthusiasts an amazing community has evolved one with its own governing body that guides the community with rules and guidelines to ensure the integrity of each and every solve For so many precocious young minds within this community the obsession for cubing seems to be a natural extension to explore limits test boundaries and to challenge themselves without any doubts for a young Drew Brads a strong sense of determination seemed to come from somewhere deep within himself at an early age what I remember about Drew when he was really little is that he would always have one thing that he was currently super obsessed about from the time that he learned to talk at like 10 months he started saying airplane airplane airplane airplane airplane and if an airplane went over you had to stop and pay attention so he kind of whatever was the thing of the day it was all about that but then the big one that caught on for a long time was Legos but if I just had free time at my home that's where I would be I had lots of Legos and I would just build stuff and I just liked it to look real that's what I look exactly like I had in my head that's what I wanted to look like and so all the colors had to be just right and if I didn't have the right pieces I would just like stop building it because I couldn't get it right but he always was super intent super intent about whatever it was he was doing or learning or reading or playing with that was the thing and then we got into Lego League and did LEGO League for probably five years four or five years his Lego League coach was the first place where he saw somebody who had and could solve a Rubik's Cube he was my first goal to beat in cubing and his best was 38 seconds and so when I was averaging like a minute and a half that was like the long distant goal in the future that someday I could do 38 seconds like coach Matt could and so the first time I did that it was a big exciting moment like I'd broken through I'm a real cuber now I can do 38 seconds back when he first got started there were a lot fewer younger solvers um so he was kind of the anomaly sort of here's this little kid and there are adults here I remember going how does this become a hobby when you're in your 20s and 30s and beyond I did tell him at that point I was like listen dude this is a great hobby it's not a job so when you're 21 you're not going to still be in my basement solving cubes I think that all new parents have a tendency to be hyper cautious when they are expecting a new child and us not being parents before you know we didn't you know we didn't know but we thought we knew what we were gonna do when we got home from the hospital it wasn't more than about six months to seven to eight months we started to just have a gut feeling something was wrong yeah sure we were never were parents before and that clouded our sort of like our perspective a lot because we're like well we're not parents we don't know what to expect from a baby so when we saw like some of the things that max was doing we were pretty convinced max was deaf sometimes like let's say he was playing with a toy or something like that and we would just drop a giant wooden something on the on the concrete floor or the tile floor and it would make a huge clack that would normally make other kids like freak out and cry max he was playing with this thing and didn't even flinch it was just starting to pile up all the symptoms of autism were piling up I read you know this thick book about all the babies except the part autism because that is a part is no no you know he you know the baby is okay you know I talked to Miki about it and you know it was really hard to discuss it's almost like you don't want to go there so when we found out about it you know we're of course unbelievably distraught before you have baby you have a lot of dreams and you know what you're gonna do with him especially as a boy probably Schwan had more expectation than you know me and all of a sudden all the things that you know you thought that were great and you wanted to you know succeed at you all have been transfer all those hopes to your child when you realize that your child has autism all that completely flies out the door I spent most of my life in New Jersey until I was 18 and at that point I went to college in New York City that's where the cubicle was started and then after that I went to law school in DC and after that I settled in New York my fiance's name is Jessa we actually grew up together in the same environment when we were kids my earliest memory is being in the same violin class as her when I was eight years old and she was seven despite this we would kind of grew apart we didn't socialize with each other very much when we were kids but we went to the same school we reconnected after I had finished law school and as adults I guess we were more compatible than we were as kids and so we began a relationship almost you know 20 years after we were first introduced to each other I started cubing when I was 18 and that was a relatively late start I think I would have been much better if I had started earlier but I started when I was 18 and I made my way from there my ultimate goal was to be number one in the world I knew you know ever since I became very immersed in the event obviously when I first started I didn't have a grasp of how good I would be but after like one or two months of like very rigorous practice I kind of had that feeling like my physical skill cap is really high I could probably do this if I like execute well in comp and so that became my goal I had done very poorly at US Nationals 2012 and then I went home really really disappointed because not only had I tanked the nats final but I was running out of time law school is a whole new animal when it comes to academics it's one of those environments where studying and attending school and doing school related things is more than a full-time job family pressure was I think the tipping point for making that decision and really would have liked to compete for another year I made a case to take a gap year so I can compete and finish my job you know that's one way to say it to get number one in the world but family pressure was like okay if you're not going to do this now you might not do it ever so just do it now and then you can you can cube later WCA DELEGATE An individual appointed by the World Cube Association (WCA) to oversee logistics and adherence of rules and regulations of a competition Without a WCA delegate, a competition and its results cannot be recognized as official Delegates are currently not paid for their work Kit Clements is a senior WCA delegate from the Pacific Northwest of the United States and a speed cuber who has adopted the cubing community into his world in 2015 Kit used the backdrop of a cubing competition to propose to his then girlfriend Lauren I met Lauren when we weren't quite dating yet she was like really interested in the cube because actually the first day she met me she googled my name I was looking for like high school clubs or whatever. More than I could find on Facebook and the first thing that came up was his World Cube Association profile I asked him the next day I was like hey what's this thing that you have why's does it have your picture what is this do you actually know how to solve one of these things after Kit taught me how to solve the cube I was interested in knowing more about competitive solving I was like you know I like do they still have these things like is this something that I mean I was just curious you know that was kind of intend to be like oh we'll go once see what's up with the cubing community and maybe that's you know all we'll do my first competition was a pretty unusual venue as a first impression it was kind of like a I guess you know it's kind of chaotic and a lot of people crammed into one room but we got to meet so many people remember seeing Rami specifically as he was like small and full of energy I was a staff member for worlds you know we were talking about the situation in the Midwest cause we really were at a loss for people to delegate things. The first time I was asked to then actually become a delegate was in November Ilkyoo was delegating it and then I think like two or three days before the competition he was like hey do you want to co delegate this with me? I was just like I think that requires me to be a delegate? it's like oh that's a formality we can figure that out the first time I became a delegate was like a couple days before a competition and we just kind of co-delegated it which actually turned into Ilkyoo kind of sitting back and watching me doing the whole thing You wanna die on the way home? Need some visibility! I want to see my moms face shine in this windhsield at this point I had no idea there was any kind of competitive world out there or that anyone could solve it in under a couple of minutes it wasn't until drew heard about a competition at University of Dayton here close to town and told me that somebody had solved it I don't know in like 20 seconds and I was just like no buddy it's that's not actually possible this is a YouTube video and buddy what they can do is they can edit it so that it looks like that but that's not really mom yes it is so you know he then he was like I can get faster I'm gonna get faster and then he was off like it just was like anything else in his childhood it was the obsession. The okay this is what I'm gonna do so first competition that I went to when people knew that I was good at pyraminx because I went to Indiana 2012 and got the North American record average but nobody knew that was gonna happen nobody had any idea that I'd been practicing pyraminx coming to New Albany 2013 I'd gotten online on speedsolving and on YouTube and people knew that I was going for a world record and that killed me like I could not I got a four second average and the only round there was that was when my really bad period of competition nerves set in but the pressure was from me partially but then from the idea that everyone else was like rooting me on kind of threw me off and I don't like blame them for that obviously I felt really awesome that I had all this group of people who wanted me to succeed and do well but I think it was the second round four solves in that were like solid I was doing well last scramble picked it up it was not a good scramble but I knew I needed like a 3.5 to get the world record average so I was like find a stupid solution and start turning fast and you'll just get it and it'll be over and I posted the video online that night and I get back the next day look at the comments and people are like you turned it during inspection I can see it it's on speedsolving forum and on YouTube people are discussing whether I should have DNF'd the solve but I went home the board sent me an email like questions to make sure that I didn't do it on purpose and they asked like wouldn't it be harder to accidentally turn a pyraminx because it has ball bearings in it and I was like oh my gosh guys why would I turn it in inspection? There's a camera and I uploaded it before they made the announcement of the final decision there was all kinds of talk on the forum like taking screenshots of where it was turned and comparing pyraminx's to it to see if I'd actually done more than half a turn that would count as a DNF as long as I only turned it a little bit it'd be fine but if it was over half a turn then I've definitely broken a rule and it needs to be DNF'd DNF (Did not Finish) A result given to a solve attempt that violates WCA rules. A DNFcan nullify and remove any solve, even world records and special achievements. so in the meantime I was definitely like this huge weight hanging over everything I did kind of tension but when I found out about it I was in here I think sitting at my desk and I read the decision and I just kind of sat here for a few minutes like I can't believe it I worked so hard it's gone I was mad I wasn't gonna let him know I was mad because I really I understood the gravity of this is a huge moment in my parenting to teach him how to handle this with grace and we say we'll get it next time it was farther away than any of the other ones and I didn't really have like anyone who was gonna give me money to send me down there and so I was like can we can we go? and my parents were like yeah we're going and my goal is podium I'm gonna get on the podium I got second second in semi-finals so I was in the last group of finalists the last two head-to-head and it's kind of scary because you know how it is you watch the finals and then when you get to the last two that's when you expect like the big fireworks for some reason I thought that Lucas did a lot worse than me I didn't even watch his last solve because I thought I'd beat him pretty badly turns out I beat him by .04 so I don't know why I thought that and so I was like scanning the crowd looking for somebody who would tell me if I won and I saw Blake Thompson and he's sitting there like yeah got it nice job and I was like yes oh my gosh I won nationals and then while we're waiting for the award ceremony I was off to the right of the stage and there's this like little closet thing behind the stage I don't know what it was and like this is so funny Phil was like standing Phil Yu is like standing back in the closet he's like Drew come over here and he like takes me back in the closet like what is this guy doing he's like hey you want the cubicle to send you all kinds of free stuff and travel everywhere? I was like uh-huh yeah sounds good I'm not gonna say no to that I said to him if you want to say yes to this that's fine but what I don't want to see happen is for it to take the fun out of it for you if it pushes you just enough to make you better and you can still enjoy it great if it makes you feel so pressured that if you don't win you're gonna lose a sponsorship and then you're not gonna be able to cube and then what are we gonna do don't bother go to the ones that you can afford to take yourself to and let that be enough for you one of the things that I think has made him hard-working is the fact that early on he did have to pay he had to pay to get new cubes if he wanted to go to the competition he didn't have to pay our gas early on I mean the poor kid was like nine or ten but he did need to pay his his fees to get into it and things like that and there's a lot to be said for that he essentially he wasn't gifted his way into the community community of cubing he bought the things he needed to get started and so that's been good and but then that way to the pressures his not us bought you this and I bought you that and I brought you to this competition and now go perform acceptably hey Damian did Mats talk to you about US Nationals yet? yeah he sent me a message yesterday and he also brought up Asian Championships so we should probably look into hotels I had been in a college class and I have already met a friend his name was Jason he was an international student from South Korea and we kind of we were cubing together in the back of the class and then all of a sudden James approached us and he's like oh you guys cube I cube too I said in a very offhand comment to James wouldn't it be cool to have a store in this in this field doing this will probably affect my ability to get a corporate position or like a lawyer position later in life because you have to compete against like generations and like years and years of newly minted you know law students I basically said look family like I already went to law school I gave up my cubing career for it you know that was the thing that I chased and I couldn't get that please don't let me lose this chance I felt like there was so much room for growth and that I owed my friends the people at my company and the community my best effort to develop the industry and to develop the market in a way that I felt was good considered one of the top cubers in the speedsolving community Max Park boasts an impressive 10 to 11 turns per second in his speed solves max is uniquely talented at commanding precise finger movements with sharp control and amazing dexterity but this is a far cry from where he began for many young children with autism there exists a comorbid condition that can affect fine motor skills simple daily tasks like holding a pencil or tying shoelaces can be near impossible originally we got him into cubing because Max had a really hard time with fine motor skills and that would be like anything fine so we had to work on things like you know holding paper clips putting pennies into jars you know squeezing it through a little hole or just anything that required dexterity with your your fingers and one of the things he couldn't do was open up a water bottle and so in the process of going through therapy exercises one of the things that we thought was well let's have them work with Rubik's Cube he seemed to be very drawn to sort of like you know the colors and the shapes and we thought well this is gonna be really good for his fingers and so the therapist started working with him and you know Miki actually at one point went on YouTube and learned how to solve the cube so she can teach Max so I learned from YouTube and then I taught him and then you know from there he just took off you know so that's how it started Miki learned it first taught Max, Max picked it up right away and immediately the next day he was faster than Miki at that time we were always looking for a situation to put him in a social situation playdates and things like that and a lot of times when we went to different situations or different events different events had a social situation but it was difficult because even at that time max is just so far behind socially that it was just too much of a hurdle to climb to even keep up or to maintain understandable process for max to even follow with everybody else so for example like soccer or anything like that I mean he just there was just such a learning curve of he had no clue what was going on so that's why I try to look for this competition I just Googled and then it was popped up with this Nisei Open at the beginning I was kind of terrified because I didn't know what Max would think or act because he's obsessed with this win meaning he doesn't like to play any games unless he knows for sure that he's gonna do perfect 9 seconds! 9.15 he got sub 10! but when we got there he was so happy and he recognizes cubers and then pointing and then talked surprisingly everybody that was there were super patient and really really kind and very understanding and you know even like the first person that Max ever cubed with was Everett Kelly and he showed Max how the process worked how to solve how to touch the timer or how to sign and so it was funny the things that he was experiencing were the same things that we had to spend tons of money trying to hire therapists to do we were getting it for free at a cubing competition and much more purposeful and valuable because Max loved it there and loved it what everybody was doing so now we brought together two worlds a therapy environment and Max loves it. Now what could be more powerful than to use that to help him develop his social skills so it was a gold mine for us right away we thought this is a goldmine apart from the benefits of socialization max would soon discover that competitions were a place where he could thrive in 2012 in only his second competition an 11 year old Max placed first in the 6x6 event surprising everyone at the competition especially his parents in the next four years Max's steady improvement would take him to dazzling heights that his parents would have never imagined I think there's definitely a definite understanding from delegate to delegate about how much work we put into the community and how much you know mentorship we give how much work goes behind the scenes to put in results and I think there's kind of the shared understanding that you know we're kind of unsung heroes but at the same time we're okay with that for me cubing was definitely like a community that was awesome for me to stumble into you know I feel like many people will always say that cubing is you know a hobby first and a competition second it's all about the social gathering more than it is about doing official solves I really enjoyed when things you know get bigger get better I want you know not just to be a bystander who's soaking it all in I want to be you know expanding it further out one of the advantages of cubing is it's reached all the different facets of his life it's certainly trickled over into okay I have this big project so I'm going to set my goal and then these are the steps I'm going to take to get there the amount of hope that was thrown back from the day Max was diagnosed and all the hope was gone to how the hope is being siphoned back in slowly let's see impact number one not that Lauren and I weren't hitting it off without cubing but it's always something that's been a part of my relationship from the start and you know even if we would be together without cubing you know our relationship I feel it would be in a totally different place especially with the friendships we've made together in this community and it's awesome I will always be thankful for cubing that I've gotten is just a great relationship with my wife that's only strengthened further by the relationships with our friends in the cubing community cubing's gotten big enough there's some money to be made for companies that want to invest in it and I stopped having to pay for cubes which was a weird thing because for the past five years the only reason I'd wanted money was to pay for cubes it all comes back sort of full circle and I feel happy that I'm able to contribute to another person's life where they still have you know opportunities to explore when it comes to achieving their goals but it also fills a hole in my heart it fills the hole that I got from not being able to get what I want you know it's really nice to be able to give things back to the younger community and really give people who you know maybe don't have best of friends or just their friends you know don't enjoy the same things they do it's awesome to see like a lot of you know shy 13 year olds when I started this that are now just social butterfly 18 year old people now and it's so cool to feel like that I had maybe some small part in like a lot of people's lives in cubing earnings was not a thing when I started and nobody thought it was ever going to be a thing basically like a part-time job that I just do my normal thing for and they pay me a decent amount I've been able to save up a lot of money that can help with college and I ended up buying my first car with like Moyu money developing young adults that understands competitive nature and striving to be the best and resulting from hardwork discipline and yet you're not rising at the expense of somebody else you know I got into teaching because I wanted to make impacts on people's lives and cubing is really the same thing I want to be able to feel like I'm bettering the world and I think the cubing community turns out young adults that are just set up to succeed in life in almost every way seeing him become the kind of person that I always wanted him to be and seeing how cubing has fit into that and been a passion for him and helped him become that is huge its certainly changed his whole entire life for so many of us speedcubing has played an important part in our lives it has introduced us to long lasting friendships helped us to belong and for others it has changed lives Ernest Hemingway once said there is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man true nobility is being superior to your former self nowhere else is this statement more self-evident than in our speedcubing family this idea of creating a healthy competitive environment that fosters individual pursuit to be the best while still cheering the success of our rivals is what makes us special and that is why we cube In 2017, Max won the 3x3 World Championship in Paris, France As of July 2018, Max has broken 20 world records in 6 different events Today Max homeschools and enjoys studying binary codes and mathematics Max continues to work on his socialization challenges with new friends made through cubing In 2017, Drew went on to claim the World Championship title in the Pyraminx event Drew continues to work hard to maintain his standards for cubing and school. At the same time, he is also working hard to learn to enjoy his journey. After high school, Drew plans to delay college for a year to travel to Costa Rica where he plans to learn Spanish, do ministry work, and attend any cubing competitions he can find there Kit is currently one of 12 senior delegates for the World Cube Association (WCA). Kit and Lauren travel together throughout the United States to delegate and organize competitions and meet new people. He continues to pursue his love of teaching and hopes to become a full-time professor of statistics in the next few years Phil continues his role as CEO of TheCubicle.us as he tries his best to balance a grueling work schedule, family life, and playing tennis. His future plans include working with his team to support the cubing community and helping more speedcubers realize their dreams

Channel: TheCubicle

Views: 890,622

Rating: 4.9522886 out of 5

Keywords: why we cube, wwc, speedcubing film, documentary, rubiks cube, speedcuber, chrisolsonfilms, cubicle studios, drew brads, max park, kit clement, phil yu, thecubicle, cubicle, thecubicleus, speedcube, cubing

Id: 1oZY2e25VUw

Length: 43min 5sec (2585 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 10 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Cyotheking]

It's absolutely nuts reading all these comments. Thank you everyone.

In the early stages I didn't even think I could do a good enough job for a project this scale, and that people would ridicule it. You guys are the best. :)

[u/megaminxwin]

I refuse to say anything other than this is an amazing documentary. Watch it now, people, it's free.

[u/dmstepha]

This is done so beautifully, I can't think of another word to describe it. Chris did such a good job, and all 18 months of work have culminated into something I'm positive everyone will love.

[u/BigfootTouchedMe]

Absolutely beautiful. I love this community so much. I'm not ashamed to admit that I teared up a few times. Especially with Max's dad talking about how patient and welcoming cubers were towards his son - what better endorsement could a community have?

[u/TheSlickCuber]

This is incredible. Obviously, every cuber who watches it is going to love it, but I think even non-cubers who watch this will develop an interest in cubing. It's impossible to not be intrigued after all these cool stories.

I also can't wait to show this to my non-cuber friends to show them just how huge and awesome and friendly the cubing world is.

[u/[deleted]]

Damn, I wish this was a full length movie. I wanted more. Amazing job. Kinda made me teary-eyed too.

[u/staysharp87]

Great work! Almost had me in tears.

And WOW that was a short end-credit list considering how well-made the piece was, mostly because /u/chrisolsonfilms did like 100-people-worth of job.

Very well done!

[u/Jaren56]

legit had me in tears. thank you so much chris, this was insanely good

[u/ATH1RST4REVENGE]

i’m not crying...you’re crying. i love you guys