Learn · Level 4 · eyes
Look ahead
The hands solve the pair you already found; the eyes belong to the next one. Stops, not turning speed, are what separate a minute from twenty seconds.
Film a one-minute solver and a twenty-second solver side by side and the difference is not turning speed. It is the stops. The slower solver turns fast, halts, hunts for the next piece, turns fast, halts again. The faster one turns at a modest, even pace and never stops at all.
The skill is called lookahead, and it is exactly what it sounds like: while your hands execute the pair you already found, your eyes leave it, deliberately, and go hunting for the next one. The pair in your hands is a solved problem. Watching it insert teaches you nothing.
Two drills build it. The first is slow solving: solve with the timer running but cap your turning speed at half of comfortable, slow enough that your hands never once have to wait for your eyes. Your times will barely suffer, which is the lesson itself. The second is stop-counting: do a normal solve and count your full stops during the first two layers. That number, not your time, is the score. Get it down solve by solve.
Recognition feeds all of this. The faster you can name a case, the earlier your eyes are free to move on, which is what the trainer drills directly.