Yuncong Evan Liu (10) whirled a 3×3 Rubik’s cube between his hands, spinning the sides faster than most people’s eyes can follow. But, his own eyes didn’t need to see. They were covered with a blindfold as he solved it, and it had taken only a few glimpses at the cube earlier before he had it completely memorized. The timer ticked away as the pieces swiveled at his fingers’ command. He was making good speed; less than fifty-five seconds — his usual time while blindfolded — had elapsed, and he was close to done. This was just another normal day of practice for Liu.

Despite his present skill, his beginnings were simple, born of a desire to escape boredom. He first started cubing in eighth grade, surrounded by other cubers.

“You couldn’t use your phone in class, so people would just bring the Rubik’s cubes as a substitute,” Liu said. “Over time, a lot of people quit, but I found it really interesting, so I continued. I liked the moment where I stopped the timer and saw the cube solved; it was always super stressful, but also so fun.”

In the past year, Liu has attended five competitions for non-blindfolded 3×3 cubing, making the finals in one and semifinals in another. In this event, he set a personal record of 10.28 seconds. However, since most people compete in the 3×3 cubing, Liu said he decided to expand his horizons.

“I was looking for another event to do that was fun and also less competitive and that’s when I came across blindfolded [cubing],” Liu said. “I tried it a few times, and I was surprised that I could do it. It was really fun, and that’s why I kept going with it.”

In his first blindfolded competition at the Triton Tricubealon 2024 in San Diego, Liu reached the finals and ranked 214th place nationally, though not without difficulty.

“I messed up the first two times; I couldn’t complete the cube,” Liu said. “But then, on the very next round, I completed all the solves successfully and got a personal record. That really got me excited, and even though it was super stressful, it was really cool. I’m still proud of that.”

Liu said that the most important part of cubing is consistent practice, which has helped him to understand his weaknesses and address them. For example, in blindfolded cubing, the pieces on the cube have assigned letters, including “a” and  “b” and “q.” The solver memorizes where to move the first piece, then where to move the one in the spot the first should be in, and so on until the cube is solved. However, the “q” piece provided a challenge for Liu.

“I would always [mix up] the letter ‘q’ for the letter ‘k’ or ‘c,’ or I would completely forget it,” Liu said. “For every two letters, I make a word, then a story out of each letter pair to make it easier to remember, but it’s awkward, because not many words have the letter ‘q’ in them. So in practice, I would make unique words and focus on memorizing the letter ‘q’ so in a competition, I wouldn’t make a mistake.”

While training is crucial to developing strong skills in cubing, it takes a lot of time and effort, which taught Liu the transferable skill of managing his time effectively.

“When I was doing blindfolded solving, I would practice a lot,” Liu said. “In the beginning, I was really slow, so it forced me to invent a new way of practicing. I started changing up my schedule, and I’ve been a lot better at time management. I’ll designate a certain time frame for cubing, but within that time frame, I’ll also tell myself, ‘Okay, this is what I need to work on.’ Learning how to [practice] on my own is the big impact of cubing.”

Aside from that, Liu said that cubing introduced him to a great community.

“At every competition, people walk up to me and start a conversation about cubing,” Liu said. “They’re all really nice, and I think cubing is one of those things where everyone in the community just has a lot of things in common. It’s really cool to be able to interact with people that have the same passion as you. The community is my favorite thing [about cubing].”

Liu has done his best to expand this community. At Westview, he is currently the co-president of the Cubing Club and is eager to find more ways to make the club a great place for people to explore their love of cubing.

“It comes down to introducing more people to the hobby and organizing competitions,” Liu said. “Making the cubing community bigger is really important, and it makes me part of something bigger than myself. I’m excited to have more people getting into cubing and sharing the same passion.”

Liu said that although the process of learning to solve a Rubik’s cube blindfolded has been frustrating, he learned to accept the nonlinear nature of improvement.

“There are periods of time where I improve a lot, and then there are periods of time where I don’t improve at all,” Liu said. “There were two weeks where I was practicing every day, but my time dropped by not even one second. Each day, I felt more and more burnt out about cubing; it felt more like a chore. But then, after taking a break from cubing and then going back to it, everything felt better, and I improved by one or two seconds. Sometimes it’s up, sometimes it’s down, but you just have to keep going.”