A technique with less mnemonics and more
simplicity online
OK, so you have somehow memorised the cube and now, blindfolded, you want to solve it. Some pieces are not flipped the right way and some pieces are not positioned in the right place. So, it would be great if there was a way to tackle these challenges in succession. Fortunately, the speed cubing experts know techniques. This is what I imagine they do (because I never understood any online tutorials):
1). Flipping pieces without changing their location. There is a way to flip 2 edges of a cube face without their positions changing (I can emulate this by doing moves in succession which I named 'Shamrock' and 'A': one flips pieces but repositions them, the other moves them back to their starting position). With this type of method, presumably, the expert cubers manage to flip all edges to show their appropriate colour. The corners need orienting too so that the appropriate colour shows for them. With set-up moves and a standard 2-corner-twisting technique, this can be done without changing the position of any piece of the cube.
2). It seems that positioning corners where they need to be will cause 2 edges to switch position. However, the following occasion on which this happens, the edges switch with each other again - as if the edges had never changed position at all. This principle allows corners to change position without altering a lot the original position of edge pieces. A library of techniques for switching two edges could then be used so that a green edge, for instance, will reach the green face and the piece which it replaces arrives at the original position of the displaced piece.
But I had a different perspective when I analysed the cube: I wanted to use mnemonics as half-way temporary notes of where pieces had arrived at. So my method expected pieces to have a freedom of movement. This allowed me to mimic the popular sighted-person's solution to the Rubik's cube. So, in terms of using a beginner's solution, I achieved simplicity but I needed mnemonic complexity to allow that to happen. So, if you have no joy studying the speed cubers' methods then you might gain respect for my method. I do not explain its specifics currently (December 2006) because I do not want to forfeit its marketability. But its overview might satisfy you that, the blindfolded Rubik's cube is not just for an elite.
In fact, some of the speed cubers are not trying to be elite - they love their hobby and they want to share it. As with blindfold cubing, you have to feel your way [in a figurative sense].
mick_curtis@yahoo.co.uk (subject heading: Rubiks Cube)