See here. It took me 3 weeks the first time, about 1 week the second time. I remember setting my alarm to 5am so I could work on the cube for two hours in the morning before going to school. Eventually I got my time down to a little over 2 minutes (which is just about the longest I can concentrate on anything). There were two kinds of cube solvers: those who held the cube in a stationary orientation and spun the edges around, and those who kept turning the cube around in their hands to get just the right orientation for each move. I was of this second type, which I think kept my efficiency down. One of my math professors in college told me that he'd solved the cube in theory--he taught abstract algebra--but had never bothered to do it in practice. This impressed me to no end. A guy down the hall from me had a 4x4x4 cube, which at one point we tried to see if we could solve using only 3x3x3 operators. I don't think we succeeded.
It's been years since I've done the cube. Last time I tried and tried and tried and got stuck. If I ever want to do it again, I think I'll have to figure out some operators again from scratch.
Andrew, I, like you, was once swift enough to solve any random cube in ~2 minutes. I'm suspecting that I am a bit older than you, as I haven't held a Rubik's cube in 25 years. I would be absolutely flummoxed if somebody handed me one now. I remember those days though...good times, indeed.
Hi Andrew - like the previous poster it was over 20 years ago for me that I attempted the Rubik's Cube. The new Rubik 360 Erno has created seems more suited to my approach of "trial and error" which failed missarably on the Cube.
I tried in the past one cube. I got stuck in it in 1 week. After a few years I tried again for almost 4 weeks and I've done it! I don't know if there's a technique but I've made it! :)