Matty Hiroto Inaba

The Cubing Jedi.

By Sepp Zammuto

Illustration by Ellie Hodges

“I just do this to mentally torture myself because it’s so hard.” Matty Hiroto Inaba, CC ’29, adjusts his glasses and stares contemplatively at his scrambled Rubik’s Cube. By mental torture, Matty means the exercise of planning the first two layers of the 3x3 entirely in his head—about 25 moves into the solution—before even turning it once. 

He continues, “so now I’m gonna start tracking the pieces and then rebuilding it in my head, right?” I nod, trying my best to follow his thought process as he begins outlining his plan in cubing notation. 

“First, I’m gonna track the corner of this pair. R’ F R2 L. It’s here, white facing that way. D’ brings it there. R2 B’, so now it’s there. R’ U L’ U …,” he mutters as I watch in disbelief. 

Speedcubing, the mental game of solving Rubik’s Cubes (and other twisty puzzles) as fast as humanly possible, is not the first phenomenon that comes to mind when you think of large tournaments, successful influencers, and sponsored competitors; however, the community has quickly evolved into a global spectacle with professional-level talent. Known as “The Cubing Jedi” to his fans on the internet, Matty first shook the speedcubing world with his wizardry, and now holds court at Columbia.

I first watched Matty solve the cube four years ago in a YouTube episode of Monkey League, a virtual, community-driven alternative to the official competitions that were canceled during the pandemic. Matty’s opponent in the video was the 25-year-old Feliks Zemdegs—the eight-time world record holder for the average time to solve the 3x3 Cube (then 5.53 seconds)—and considered by many, including myself, to be the greatest speedcuber of all time. Bringing his creativity and steady hands to the table, Matty won the match 3–0 sets, blitzing Feliks. In the after-match commentary, Matty ardently recalled that Feliks had inspired him throughout his whole cubing career. “Oh, you don’t have to flatter me,” the veteran replied, laughing and shaking his head in amazement. 

As a child, Matty initially discovered his passion for cubing at a department store in Japan with his mom. “I asked her to buy one for me, but she was like, ‘maybe I shouldn’t buy it for you, ‘cause you’re not going to be able to solve it.’ So then that really inspired me to solve it.” Matty accepted his mom’s challenge, solved the cube for the first time, and set a higher goal: beating the best in the world. He began his journey toward beating Feliks Zemdegs by racing a YouTube video in which Feliks completed 20 Rubik’s Cubes in record time. “When I started, I couldn’t even do it—like, he would do all 20 before I finished one. And then I gradually got faster and faster. I’m like, oh, now it only takes me five for Feliks to do one. And then it only takes me two. And then I’m like, oh my gosh, wait, now I can almost beat him. I did that for four years, and then I finally got to compete with him and ended up beating him, which was one of the most satisfying things ever.” 

Having grown up in Hawaii, Matty was far from most cubing events, but he thinks his geography gave him a competitive advantage early on. “I’m kind of grateful, almost, that I was so far away from competitions because that trained me to value each opportunity I get.” He recalled that his first sponsor, Tribox, scouted him after a small competition in Tokyo, motivating him to quickly improve and win Japan Nationals in 2017. GANCUBE, based in China, reached out to him next during the pandemic, and the Cubicle, based in the U.S., recruited him shortly after. Matty regularly posts on Instagram and YouTube to promote their brands, and occasionally visits the Cubicle headquarters to film content and test new products. Last July, he was flown out to Seattle, Washington for the 2025 World Championship, where he placed fifth with a 5.47-second average—the highest rank of any North American competitor. 

Due to a combination of peak hand dexterity, greater neuroplasticity for learning, and more free time to practice, the top speedcubers in the world are shockingly young. Today, the competitive scene is dominated by two extraordinary pre-adolescent minds: 11-year-old Yiheng Wang and 8-year-old Xuanyi Geng, professional Chinese speedcubers who are already sponsored and have their own designated coaches. Yiheng holds the world record average time of 3.90 seconds, while Xuanyi holds the world record single time of 3.05 seconds. “The paradigm is shifting. I am definitely ‘unc status’ in cubing, by far,” Matty conceded, laughing. He was forced to raise his game against Yiheng in Monkey League last year, facing the child’s fully-unlocked potential of the human brain’s spatial recognition.  Against all odds, including a few probability models that people ran to show just how low his chance of winning was, Matty managed to beat him with a reverse sweep of 2–1 sets. “Bro just dogged a 10-year-old,” someone commented on his Instagram recap. Matty offered no witty reply, nor did he feel any remorse for defeating the world’s best yet again, regardless of the champion’s age. 

When Matty announced he was attending Columbia, I was thrilled at the prospect of learning from him in person and reconnecting with my joy for speedcubing. We first met outside Butler Library amidst the frenzy following freshman convocation, where he mentioned the possibility of competing together in the Collegiate Cubing Championship. After a few coaching sessions, we officially registered as a team of three: Matty; Kym Calderon, CC ’27, the former female North American Record holder; and me, the fastest turtle from the state of Vermont. While Matty thrives under pressure, he acknowledges the value of having a low-stakes competitive atmosphere in college: “I feel like that would be good for me because I compete in so many high-stakes tournaments. So doing that would be super fun, just being with my friends and competing together.” Next semester, the Cubing Jedi plans to take in some padawans and share his passion in Columbia’s first official cubing club.

On Nov. 2 at the CubingUSA All-Stars 2025 competition in Providence, RI, Matty’s career-long pursuit finally paid off: He broke the North American Record (NAR) average of five solves with a blistering time of 4.72 seconds. The previous record had been held by Max Park for over eight years. On three separate occasions, the first dating back to 2021, Matty had missed beating it due to a single +2 second penalty. Applied when a cuber stops the timer pre-maturely without completing the final move in a solution, the +2 is a devastating consequence for only a minor mistake. After the win, remembering his tumultuous journey, Matty told me, “The main thing I had to do was refuse to let the ‘when’ become an ‘if’ when I thought about NAR, and that way it always kept me believing in myself. To know that I was so close but didn’t have it for four years took a lot of determination to not just give up.” Matty described the NAR as his greatest achievement in cubing. The community now awaits with bated breath to see where he sets the bar next. 

Meanwhile, I’m shooting for the slightly more modest goal of averaging sub-8 seconds (I’m only mortal). To help me get there, Matty’s teaching me to break my bad habits, think more creatively, and see further into the cube before I start my solves. When I lock up my turning, overthink simple cases, or start the timer with a half-witted plan, we review the solution to pinpoint my errors, and he demonstrates his approach in detail. While we use roughly the same solving method, Matty’s peak lookahead and innovative techniques allow him to save many moves in the solution. Rarely ever pausing, he turns at a whopping 11–12 moves per second. 

I asked Matty if mastering the Rubik’s Cube has changed his outlook on puzzles in the real-world. “The model of thinking that you need to solve the cube at a high level is so useful in everything,” he explained. “It shows you that you can solve very complex problems only using a few concepts, like a few algorithms. You can combine the algorithms to solve very complex issues in the cube. You can translate that to anything.”

I end my session with a clean 7.14, feeling good about it. Matty gives me a nod of approval, picks up his cube, and reenters his flow state. “All right, I have to get another three. I touched the cube again. That’s the problem. It’s the rule. The unspoken rule of …”

“Oh, ending with three seconds—?” I ask, eyebrows raised. 

“Yeah.” He scrambles the cube and starts his careful inspection again. I watch.