Lesson 1 · ~15 minutes · needs your cube

Read the Cube

Before rebuilding your solve, you need the language back. Every algorithm between you and a WCA competition is written in standard notation — this lesson makes you fluent in it again, then runs one diagnostic solve to find out what your hands still remember.

Why this first

You solved sub-1:30 once, so the motor programs are in there — lapsed skills reload far faster than new ones build. But everything we do next (F2L, 2-look OLL/PLL) is communicated as algorithm strings like R U R' U R U2 R'. If reading those costs you effort, it eats the working memory you need for the actual learning. Notation fluency is the cheap prerequisite, so we buy it back today.

The language, compressed

Think of each move as a function on cube-state, with a well-defined inverse:

Six faces, six letters: Up, Down, Left, Right, Front, Back. A bare letter = 90° clockwise as if you were looking straight at that face. That viewpoint rule is the one thing people get wrong: it makes R roll away from you but L roll toward you.
' (prime) = inverse: 90° counter-clockwise. R' is R⁻¹.
2 = 180°: direction irrelevant.
Undoing a sequence: reverse the order, invert each move — unwinding a call stack. Undo of R U F' is F U' R'.

Full table, including the slice/wide/rotation symbols you'll need later: Notation reference card. Print it.

Hands-on: the sexy move

Pick up your cube (solved or not — it returns to where it started). This four-move trigger is the most common fragment in all of CFOP; your fingers will run it thousands of times:

R U R' U'

Drill: execute it slowly, saying each move aloud. Then repeat the whole trigger six times in a row. If your notation reading is correct, the cube comes back exactly to its starting state — the sequence has order 6, so it's a built-in self-test. If it doesn't restore, one of your letters is wrong; check R vs L direction against the reference card and try again.

Check yourself

No cube needed — answer from the notation alone.

Homework (before next session)

Order a real cube. Your Rubik's brand cube caps turning speed hard — modern budget cubes are magnetically aligned and dramatically faster. 2026 consensus budget pick: MoYu Super RS3M (ball-core), ~$22 — see Cubic School's 2026 beginner guide. Keep practicing on the old cube until it arrives.
One diagnostic solve, untimed. Scramble thoroughly (25 random moves) and solve purely from memory. No videos, no notes, no pressure — stalling is data, not failure. Write down exactly where you got stuck: cross? first two layers? orienting the last layer? permuting the last layer? Tell me next session — it determines whether we rebuild from the last layer or from the ground up.

Report back — start your next session with this

Your teacher can't see your solves. Open the agent and answer these; check items off as you go (they persist between visits):

Passed the quiz above (4/4, or reread the misses) Ordered the MoYu Super RS3M Did the untimed diagnostic solve Told the teacher where I stalled: cross / first two layers / orienting last layer / permuting last layer / no stall

Lesson 3 is designed from that stall report — it can't be written without it.

Primary source

Watch or skim J Perm's move notation page — animated, canonical, five minutes. J Perm (jperm.net) will be our primary source for the whole CFOP path.

Stuck on anything — a move that won't restore, a scramble that fights back, why B feels backwards? Ask your teacher (the agent) — that's what it's for. · Course home · Notation reference · Next lesson: decided by your diagnostic solve.