am i flowering?

i started the dark phase last week, but my plants only get complete darkness from like 8p.m.-6a.m. when the sun comes up in the morning and they get their regular light during the day. is this long enough to force it into the flowering phase or do i need to make it longer?
my friends plant is only like a foot tall and it is totally raggedy looking, but his plant is already budding, mine was 1.5' tall and since i started the night phase, it has grown about another half a foot. is this normal? any suggestions would be appreciated.

when flowering a plant it can double and triple in height depending on the plant. so you probably induced flowering cuz it jumped in height. now it will slow down and start showing sex and budding

so then my dark hours are ok? i know my plant is a female and it has some hairs coming from above the shoots, so that means it is starting to bud?

i will take some pictures today and ill post em so i can get more feedback. thanks