Observe the two figures below carefully - you can get going with the second row only if the first layer is complete as shown in Fig. 13. In Fig. 12 we may observe that the top face is indeed blue but that the 3 little cubes labelled A, B and C (indicated by arrows on the side of the Cube) are yet to be arranged in order.

This is the easiest step in the alignment of a Rubik's Cube! There are only two formulae to remember... You first rotate the middle row until its centre cube is of the same colour as that of the row just above it (the other centre cubes will be automatically aligned with their respective colours - check it!). The objective is to replace B by A (see Fig. 14). Observe, from Fig. 15, that C will replace D in the process - it's like rotating the bottom middle cube 90 degrees clockwise. Starting with the Cube in Fig. 13, we apply the following formula: B+  L+  B-  L-  B-  F-  B+  F+.