Using this method, I won the Swedish championships, and finished 4th in the world championships in Budapest . On average, I solved it in 23-24 seconds, with a personal best time of 15.92. Please take a look at my terminology , so you know the difference between a turn and a twist, among others. If you are a total beginner, look at this description of the basic concepts of Rubiks Cube. The animated Java cubes that are used for illustrations and examples are explained here .
Most people solve the cube layer by layer.
This is a simple way for the human mind to approach the problem, but it is useless for speed cubing. No matter how good you are, you will use more than 100 moves. Going for speed, I use 60 moves on average. Going for few moves, I average 50. The basic problem with the layer method is obvious, and very big.