You know all the steps and your hands are quick, but your solves still keep stopping: you finish one pair, then pause and look around for the next one. The skill that gets rid of those pauses is called Rubik's Cube look ahead, or seeing ahead. This post explains what look ahead is, when to start practising it, and three drills you can do: slow solves, the metronome, and tracking F2L pairs.
Find your case fast
Look at your cube from above and tap the picture that matches it to see how to solve it. Grey cells are stickers you can ignore.
Every move sequence in this post was tested on the EasyRubic Rubik's Cube simulator.
What is look ahead?
The SpeedSolving Wiki calls lookahead "the art of seeing what is coming": while you are solving one step, you are already finding the pieces you need for the next one. According to the wiki, solvers with good look ahead have almost no pauses in their solves, and that makes them faster (SpeedSolving Wiki).
J Perm puts it more simply: look ahead is tracking pieces as they move, so you can quickly work out what to do next. His F2L page says that good solvers do not stop to recognise each case, and that good look ahead is the biggest difference between slow and fast solvers (J Perm).
In beginner terms: your hands do this step while your eyes are already on the next one.
When should you start practising look ahead?
J Perm puts look ahead in the section for solvers aiming to get under 20 seconds. His reason: when you turn fast, your brain cannot focus on lots of things at once. So practise your F2L cases until your hands do them on their own, and only then put your attention on finding the next pair (J Perm).
That does not mean beginners have to wait. Even at step 2 of the guide, while your hands are bringing one white corner down, you can glance at the top layer for the next white corner:
- You start with (input)White cross done
- Result you will get after finishing this stepFirst layer all correct
This small habit is look ahead in its simplest form. When you move on to intuitive F2L, it will help you a lot.
The three levels of look ahead
The "Lookahead Progression Framework" post on CubeSkills, Feliks Zemdegs's speedcubing site, splits this skill into three levels (CubeSkills):
| Level | What you do |
|---|---|
| Recognising | You only look at the pair you are solving. Once it is done, you go looking for the next pair. |
| Tracking | While solving this pair, your eyes follow the pieces of the next pair. |
| Predicting | You can tell where the next pieces will end up before you turn. |
There are lots of small steps between the levels. CubeSkills points out that tracking just one piece of the next pair is already a good start. Do not force yourself to track both pieces from day one.
Before you start: what you need
All three drills below use F2L from CFOP. If you are still solving layer by layer, read How to solve a Rubik's Cube in under 30 seconds first.
Hold the cube the same way as in the intuitive F2L post:
- White face on the bottom, cross already done.
- Green face in front, orange on the right, red on the left.
- The slot you are solving is the front-right slot: the white, green and orange corner and the green and orange edge.
In the F2L pictures, the cube on the left is the case you have, with the top layer greyed out. The cube on the right is the result, flipped over so white is on top and you can see the two finished layers. If R, U and F are new to you, see Rubik's Cube notation for beginners.
CubeSkills advises getting confident with the solution for each pair first, to the point where you can do it without looking at the cube. The four inserts below are the foundation. You should be able to do them without thinking.
Four inserts to know by heart
Three-move insert, R side. Corner right above the slot, white sticker facing right, orange sticker facing up. Edge at the back of the top layer, green sticker facing up. Solution R U R'.
See it in 3D, before and after
- You start with (input)
- After the formula
Three-move insert, F side. Corner right above the slot, white sticker facing the front, green sticker facing up. Edge on the left of the top layer, orange sticker facing up. Solution F' U' F.
See it in 3D, before and after
- You start with (input)
- After the formula
Pair already joined, R side. Corner above the slot with the white sticker facing the front, edge on the right of the top layer. Both green stickers face up. Solution U R U' R'.
See it in 3D, before and after
- You start with (input)
- After the formula
Pair already joined, F side. Corner above the slot with the white sticker facing right, edge at the front of the top layer. Both orange stickers face up. Solution U' F' U F.
See it in 3D, before and after
- You start with (input)
- After the formula
The test: scramble the cube, find one of these four cases, look at it carefully, then close your eyes and do it. When you open your eyes, the pair should be in its slot. CubeSkills suggests exactly this eyes-closed, one-pair-at-a-time practice before you start on tracking.
Drill 1: solve slowly, never stop
This is the easiest drill to start with. Solve the whole cube so slowly that your hands never have to stop. If you have to stop to find a piece, you are still turning too fast.
At first your times will be worse than usual. That is how it should be. The goal of this drill is not your time, but the feeling of your eyes being ahead of your hands.
CubeSkills makes an important point: slow solves show you what look ahead feels like, but the hard part is carrying that habit into solves at real speed. So mix them up: a few slow solves, then one normal solve, and try to keep a bit of the calm from the slow ones.
Drill 2: the metronome
This drill turns "solve slowly" into an actual number. Turn on a metronome on your phone, then make exactly one move per beat, no more and no less. CubeSkills uses this drill to practise the change from the cross to F2L and the change between pairs (CubeSkills).
How do you pick the speed? The right speed is one where you have to try hard to keep up, but you do not miss too many beats. We suggest starting at 60 beats per minute, which is one move per second. Once you can do a few solves in a row without missing a beat, add 5 to 10 beats.
To get used to the beat before a real solve, warm up with R U R' U', one move per beat. Do it six times in a row on a solved cube and the cube comes back to how it started, so you know straight away if you slipped up.
- You start with (input)
- After the formula
If you catch yourself making a random move just to keep up with the beat, the beat is too fast. Slow it down.
Drill 3: tracking F2L pairs
This drill takes you from the "recognising" level to the "tracking" level. CubeSkills describes the steps like this; we have rewritten them to make them easy to follow:
- Scramble the cube and do the cross.
- Find the first pair and work out its solution.
- Before you turn, find one piece of the second pair as well.
- Solve the first pair while your eyes follow the piece of the second pair, not the pair you are inserting.
- When the first pair goes into its slot, you already know where the second pair is.
Why does this work? Because you already know the first pair's solution by heart. Take the three-move insert R U R' as an example:
See it in 3D, before and after
- You start with (input)
- After the formula
These three moves only touch the right face and the top layer. Every piece that is not on the right face or in the top layer stays put, for example the pieces in the front-left and back-left slots. If the piece you are tracking is there, just keep your eyes on it; it is not going anywhere. If it is in the top layer, it will move with the U in the middle.
Practising "predicting" with your eyes closed
CubeSkills also suggests a drill for the top level: close your eyes and predict where pieces will go after a short sequence like R U R', then slowly build up to sequences of 7 to 8 moves.
Try it now with a solved cube, white on the bottom and green in front. Do R U R' and guess: where will the white, green and orange corner and the green and orange edge end up?
See it in 3D, before and after
- You start with (input)
- After the formula
Answer (checked on the simulator): the whole pair goes up to the top layer, joined together at the front left. The edge sits at the front of the top layer, green sticker facing up, orange sticker facing the front. The corner sits in the front-left corner of the top layer, green sticker facing up, orange sticker facing the front, white sticker facing left.
Guessing wrong is fine. Open your eyes, look at the picture, then go through each move in your head: R takes the corner from the slot up to the front-right corner of the top layer, U moves it to the front-left corner, and R' does not touch it any more.
Slow down on the last three moves of each pair
A tip from CubeSkills: turn more slowly on the last few moves of each pair. That is when your hands are doing the most familiar part, so your eyes are free to look for the next pair. Giving up a little speed here so you do not have to stop completely at the start of the next pair is a good trade.
Habits that make looking ahead easier
According to CubeSkills (CubeSkills):
- Turn the whole cube less. Each time you turn the whole cube, every piece moves in front of your eyes and you have to search all over again.
- Smooth hands, steady cube. Calm turning is easier to follow than jerky turning.
- Turning faster is not always better. Very fast hands can make your look ahead worse.
- Think of F2L as one flow, from the cross to OLL, not as four separate pairs.
- Predict OLL. While you solve the last pair, try to guess the OLL case, starting by checking whether the yellow edges are already facing up. See 2-look OLL if OLL is still new to you.
Finger tricks help too: when your hands make the right moves on their own, your eyes are free to look. See Rubik's Cube finger tricks.
A sample week of look ahead practice
This is the plan we suggest, about 15 minutes a day. It is not anyone's official rule, so adjust it to fit your time.
| Day | What to do |
|---|---|
| 1 and 2 | The four inserts to know by heart, doing each pair with your eyes closed |
| 3 and 4 | Slow solves without stopping, with one normal solve after every three slow ones |
| 5 | The metronome, starting at a slow beat |
| 6 | Track one piece of the second pair while solving the first pair |
| 7 | Time an ao12 on the 3x3 timer page and compare it with last week |
Do not give up if your ao12 does not drop in the first week, or even goes up. You are changing the way you look at the cube, and a new habit takes time to get fast.
Video
Want to see it in motion? The short video below from the 1Up Cubing channel on YouTube shows more of what this post covers. The video belongs to that channel and is embedded straight from YouTube.
Sources
Frequently asked questions
What is look ahead?
It is the skill of finding the pieces for the next step while your hands are doing the current one, so your solve does not keep stopping. The SpeedSolving Wiki calls it the art of seeing what is coming.
Do beginners need to practise look ahead?
Not in a structured way yet. J Perm advises making your F2L cases automatic first, and only then putting your attention on look ahead. But the habit of glancing for the next piece is worth building early.
What metronome speed should I use?
The right speed is one where you have to try hard to keep up but do not miss many beats. We suggest starting at 60 beats per minute and going up bit by bit.
Why does solving more slowly make you faster?
Because most of the lost time is usually not in your hands, but in the pauses to find pieces. Turning a bit more slowly without stopping usually gives better results than turning very fast and then stopping for a long time.
Is look ahead only for F2L?
F2L is where look ahead makes the clearest difference, but it works at every change between steps: from the cross to the first pair, and from the last pair to OLL.