I just want to say that it was a MASSIVE honour to talk to Tommy and that I cant believe it happened.

For those reading, I do want to inform you that this interview was conducted on  Thursday, December 19. 2024. It is a bit outdated for those in 2025 or in the soon approaching 2026. However, we must remember that it's not every day you get to interview a world record holder.

Interview with Tommy Cherry

1. What got you into cubing?
Tommy:
My friend Jonathan was the first person to get me into cubing. One of my friends in elementary school, named CJ, had a sleepover birthday party that I met his cousin Jonathan at. We exchanged YouTube channels, and I later saw Jonathan make a cubing video. I was super inspired to see that he could solve a cube, and from there I set out to learn how to cube myself.

2. What inspires you to keep cubing?
Tommy:
I am inspired to keep cubing for a huge variety of reasons. For starters, there is always more room to strive for new milestones, learn new things, and get faster. Cubing has also afforded me a great community to partake in—it's almost like having a second extended family around the world with lots of interests in common with you and tons of things to learn from each other.
I am also personally motivated by chasing after other milestones, such as taking my ambitions as a cubing coach to the next level and producing better cubing content to post to the internet (mostly YouTube).

3. How much time do you cube per day?
Tommy:
Now that I am in college, my cubing schedule is pretty irregular. It really depends on the time of year and how much other things I have to do in a given day/week. I cube pretty often leading up to competitions, but there are also some occasions where I go a full week without cubing. It's a bit of a hard question for me to answer because it really depends on a lot of things and varies all over the place.

4. How much longer do you think you will competitively cube for?
Tommy:
I am unsure how much longer I will cube competitively for. If I had to take a wild guess, I would say somewhere in the range of 5–10 years, but I'm hoping to keep it alive for as long as I can!

5. What is your favorite cubing event?
Tommy:
3x3 blindfolded is my favorite event! Not only is it the one I have the best knack for of the 17 WCA events, but it also made way for how I met a bunch of my best friends over the years, many of whom are fellow blindsolvers themselves.

6. Why do you think you became good at cubing?
Tommy:
Becoming good at cubing was something I've wanted to do ever since the start. When I first solved a cube, I told myself I would one day solve the cube in under 30 seconds. Although I initially wasn't too sure how to get there, every time I practiced and broke my PB, I was inspired even more to take things further.
Once I reached the 30 second mark, I realized there was no point in stopping there since I knew there were still lots of other things I could be feasibly doing to improve my solves further, so that's what I did.

7. What tips would you give for someone trying to learn blindfolded?
Tommy:
For someone learning blindfolded, my main advice would be to take the process in very small steps. One of the first things to do is to actually understand how a beginner's blindfolded solving method works. For instance, old pochmann is the most common method people learn when starting out, and its fundamental idea is doing PLL algorithms to move around a few pieces at a time, and use setup moves to be able to swap whichever pieces on the cube you need to.
Once you understand this, you need to establish some other fundamentals like letter schemes, orientation, and memory methods, which are covered in tutorials.
The following journey to your first success is best taken slowly—starting out by using the blindfolded solving method while looking at the cube to see how it actually works, then try doing it under the table with one or two pieces at a time, then slowly level up with the number of pieces you're trying to memorize and solve without looking until eventually you get the whole cube!

8. When did you start cubing?
Tommy:
I actually remember the exact day I first learned how to solve a cube because it was so memorable for me. The day was July 30th, 2015, and it took me a few days after that to actually internalize the process and be able to solve a cube without an external guide/tutorial.

9. Do you think someone will break the 3x3 single WR soon?
Tommy:
I think it's somewhat likely that Yiheng Wang breaks it soon — he is soooo much faster than everyone else right now, and somehow keeps managing to break records! He's insanely impressive and I think he's by far the most likely to eventually get an official sub-3 solve.

10. Do you think someone will break one of the blindfolded WRs soon?
Tommy:
I hope so, and I would be especially excited if I'm the one to do it haha. I think there's still a lot of room for improvement.

11. What tips would you give a beginner cuber trying to get better?
Tommy:
My best tip to beginner cubers trying to get better is to just focus on what makes it fun for you! This can include calling/spending time with your fellow cubing friends, exploring online forums to learn useful things about cubing, making cubing videos, or really whatever you want!

Once again, thank you Tommy for answering me and not just ignoring me.