Solving a Rubik's Cube is already hard for many people. Juggling three balls is too. Now imagine doing both at once: throwing three cubes in the air non-stop and, every time one lands in your hand, giving it a turn or two before throwing it again. That's what Que Jianyu, from China, does, and he holds the Guinness record.
The record
Que Jianyu started training for this challenge at 11. After two years of practice, at the end of 2017 he set his first record on a Chinese TV show: he solved the three cubes while juggling in 5 minutes 6.61 seconds. The following year he beat it himself: on 17 November 2018, on the Italian show La Notte dei Record, filmed in Rome, he brought it down to 5 minutes 2.43 seconds. That's the moment you can see in this Guinness World Records video:
Watch the slow motion: the cube passes through his hand for just an instant and, in that time, Que Jianyu makes one or two face turns. Before starting he has 15 seconds to look at the three cubes, as in competitions.
Why is it so hard?
When juggling three objects, each hand catches and throws an object roughly every half second. There's no time to think: the turns have to come automatically, from memory, and they can't spoil the throw either, because if a cube lands badly the rhythm breaks and the attempt is over.
There's another difficulty: you have to keep track of three different cubes at once. When a cube comes back to your hand, you have to remember where you were in the solution of that particular cube, and look at it just enough without losing track of the other two. A fast cuber solves a cube in about 50 or 60 moves, so in total that's more than 150 turns made in little bits.
Guinness records and WCA records
This record is a Guinness World Records title. Guinness recognizes all kinds of curious feats: blindfolded, underwater, on a bicycle… Official competition records are something else: they're kept by the World Cube Association (WCA), and in them the cube is solved the normal way, with a timer and very strict rules. You can see them all on our Rubik's Cube records page, which is updated every week.
Dare to try?
If you want to try something similar, take it one step at a time. First learn to solve the cube without looking at the solution: here's our step-by-step Rubik's Cube solution, and some tips to memorize the solution so you don't forget it. Then learn to juggle three balls. And when you've mastered both, start with a single cube: throw it from one hand to the other and make one turn every time you catch it. Time yourself with our Rubik's Cube timer. With patience, who knows.