Practice

I've been practicing a lot over the last few days, particularly with the cards and recorded a new personal best today of 3mins 36seconds with 2 errors. Far from a world record but pretty good. I'm practicing with just my brain, as in, when I do the recall I am not re-ordering another pack of cards, just saying them out loud and then turning over to see if I was right. I know I would have got 100% right if I had re-ordered another pack as there were only 2 left over that I couldn't place.

I'm going to play around with things as they are at the moment and then go for a quick time with a re-ordered deck at the end. I'm sure I'll shave a few valuable seconds off that way as I will have other cards to remind me when there are blanks.

2 Brain wave training sessions later

I completed my second session of brain wave training with Henry Hopking today and am feeling really good about it. It's hard to describe how it makes you feel exactly, but some of it's kind of out of body weird, some is like deep meditation and other bits make you feel totally euphoric!

My initial EEG showed a problem with my brain being stuck in a certain frequency. You get all wired up and then they monitor what your brain does in different situations. Basically, your brain waves should change depending on what you're doing. Mine were fine, apart from a 9-10hz range that was fixed no matter what I was doing which is quite abnormal. Goes a long way to explain my poor concentration and mental chatter so I hear. After the initial session, 2 home sessions and the one today it appears that my brain is now starting to move in the right direction and correct the abnormal pattern, which is good news :)

I have just practiced 5 packs of cards (not memorising, just viewing images in my head) and felt much better with it. Didn't have the mental noise going on like I normally do and found the images were coming to me easier. I was also able to focus more on the task and not keep thinking about how well I'm doing, how fast am I going etc.

So over all, very very pleased and have a lot of work to do, but can see good results coming in the future.

Update by request

To he who requested this update.................you know who you are :)

Well, it's been a while but I have a very good excuse....................I really couldn't be arsed to write anything.........but now I can!

I've been training pretty well for a week or two. Going through a pack of cards at least once per day but aiming for more like 5 times per day. I'm getting a lot faster at seeing images and not doing any conversion in my head but there are still a few cards that aren't quite there yet.


My binary is getting pretty good too. Working through those most evenings in the same way as the cards and starting to see them pretty quickly. Still don't like looking at them in blocks though. I think i'll have to draw lines down my sheet in the next competition to break them up in to manageable blocks of 6 digits.

Looks like I'm meeting up with Darren Denholm from South Africa in January at my place in Stamford which will be a blast! Can't wait to see him. For those that don't know him, he's a great laugh and so hungry for knowledge it's unreal! We are talking about holding a free memory talk at a local school which could be good. Get a bit more interest in our unique sport :)


I'm having my first session with Henry Hopking on Friday this week. He is a mind guru and developed an AVE (Audio Visual Entertainment) machine with Dominic O'brien. I spoke to Dominic and he swears by the machine so I'm going to have 3 sessions to help balance my brain waves and help me get in to an optimised state for memorising when I need to. I have huge problems with my attention span and ability to focus so I know if he can help me with that my performances will improve dramatically. I've always thought that if I could just sit down and focus on a pack of cards properly I could cut a huge amount of time off my personal records.

I'll probably update some time after Friday and let you all know what the machine is like and if it starts to make any improvements.

It's back!

James: "Hi motivation! Where have you been?"
Motivation:"You know, just chilling with my friend 'can't be arsed' for a while but now I'm back!"
James:"That's great news, can I please get back to my memory training now with enthusiasm and motivation?"
Motivation:"That's fine by me. Enthusiasm was right behind me on my way back to your brain so you should be fine"
James:"Many thanks motivation, I'm glad you have come home."

As you will notice from the above conversation, motivation is back. I sat in bed last night going through cards and random numbers with a renewed excitement for them both. It seems that the longer I've left it, the better I get which is strange. The cards felt very natural last night, didn't have to force anything and the images came to me very clearly which I was happy about.

So looks like I'm back in the game! It would seem I need to work quite hard now to get a place in Josh's soon to be movie Moonwalking with Einstein :o)

How very very strange

I spoke to my American buddy Mike online yesterday who not only has mastered the Rubik's cube himself but knows the guy personally who's website I am learning from! It's a small world eh?

I'm quite excited about it. I don't know if I'll get to a good speed with it or not but it feels good to do. I seem to focus well when I'm doing it and not drift off like I can do when I'm memorising. Perhaps it's all the pretty colours :)

I'm going to get back to memorising Pi in the New Year when I've moved house and got all settled in to a new place. I'll nail a few thousand digits of that and raise some money for charity on the way I think. Well, that's the plan anyway. I'll see how I feel after 2,000 digits as to how far I want to go but I can't see it being more than 5,000. A bit too much commitment of my life to go much further than that!

A new low

I've been quiet on the memory front recently. Mainly because I've had zero motivation. I just can't get my head down to do anything at the moment so I made an important decision......................BUY A RUBIX CUBE!

I've never used one before but I've seen people do it in under 30 seconds and I thought to myself "Now there's a party trick" and also good exercise for the old grey matter whilst it is seeking motivation.

I've mastered the first few steps and the rest is just memorising algorithms so not very hard, just takes time to figure it out a few times. We're also moving house at the moment so my head is kind of in to that too. I'll be doing more memory work in January when things have chilled out.

The hangover

Good lord, I am now feeling the crushing low of the alcohol induced high. Why oh why do I do it.

I am debating writing a book on how to hide a hangover as I seem to be doing a rather masterful job of it if I do say so myself.

It feels like something has taken over my body allowing only certain functions to remain such as typing and nodding. I hope I haven't damaged the memorising bits of my brain too badly. We'll see at the weekend when I devour some more Pi.

May this be a lesson to you all

How to develop a perfect memory

I was so excited this morning to see the famous book 'How to develop a perfect memory' by Dominic O'brien arrive this morning! I've heard people paying silly money for it but I managed to pick it up for £12 delivered which was a bargain.

As for the training, I'm still working hard on numbers and cards. Haven't done much with Pi but tested myself on the first 350 digits last night and got them all correct. I've been revising 5 packs of cards per day for the last few days and have noticed my speed dramatically improving. I'm going through the pack as fast as I can just seeing my images in my head, then moving on. I'm down to a tiny fraction over 1 second per card. Lots of room to improve still but enjoying seeing the time go down :)

Pi r Squared, Cakes r round

Last night I added some more digits in taking me up to 140 in total. Taking it really slowly and reviewing more times that I would do normally just to make sure the system works right. I'm also stacking twice as many digits as I would do normally so it's taking a lot longer than normal.

On the plus side, it is proving to be very efficient. I have only used 7 locations to store 140 digits so far and on recall I've only made one basic error by skipping over one part of the stack. Apart from that, it's going very very well so will keep going, hopefully picking up speed as my brain gets used to it.

It feels really strange when recalling, it's a lot more manageable than my previous system. I review a short little story that contains 20 digits and then move on to the next spot, do the same, move on to the next location etc. which keeps everything in nice neat little piles. It's helping to eliminate the fear factor of huge numbers.

Onwards and upwards!

Anyone for pi?

Quick update guys. To practice the new system and to kind of prove to myself that it works 100% I've started to memorise pi as a bit of an experiment. I've done the first 60 digits tonight just to start and it works very nicely. I've only used 3 of my locations to store the info. I'm stacking 20 digits in each place because I'm not against the clock and can afford the time to extend it a bit more.

I think I'm going to go for 5,000 digits which will only take 25 rooms using my system. Not bad I say!!

I've reviewed the first 60 digits a couple of times and they are well and truly in there so not concerned about the next few hundred. 5,000 would kind of prove the point I think and my girlfriend has said if I do it with no errors I can get a cool pi tattoo :)

First card trial

I just had a quick go at 20 cards to see how the new stacking system works and I'm pleased to say it feels much better, more accurate and easier than my previous efforts. Although I didn't time it (don't want to get discouraged by a slower time cos it's all shiny and new!) it was almost certainly quicker than before and the recall was much easier. It felt like I was looking at 4 short little movie scenes instead of one huge epic as I was before. It also feels better because I'm seeing a whole pack of cards or row of numbers as little manageable blocks rather than one huge task if that makes sense.

Speed with come with practice of course but I haven't dropped any speed at the moment anyway, so I'm hoping it will just get better from now on. The nice thing was I only used 4 locations in a room that has 10 items in it to store 20 cards. Very pleased it seems to be working well.

I'll do a full pack later on tonight probably and make sure that goes OK before starting to time anything.

I'm so dizzy, my head is spinning

I woke up this morning, promptly fell to the ground followed by thought like "oh my god, I'm having a seizure!"

Turns out I've got some major blockage thing in my right ear which is messing up my balance something chronic making me feel sea sick all the time. It's days like today when you're not at work it'd be good to practice some memory techniques, however, I fear my ear will be my akilies heal :(

I think I'll end up dreaming up new routes or something and putting them in a logical order so I have a bit more storage space.

2 posts in 1 day?!

I've had a quick play with my new system and wanted to post the first results. I just memorised a 30 digit number in 60 seconds with no errors. I was very pleased with that for a first attempt with a new system. I don't think I could go that fast using my old method as it stands. Perhaps with a bit more practice though. It didn't feel cramped or like I had to stop also which was good. Felt like I could have gone a lot further at that pace.

It's highlighted a few things though. Because I'm putting 5 items in 1 place I've been counting on my fingers when I get to 5 so I know when to move on to the next part of my route. Perhaps if I was to do something like person-object-action-object-object or some variant of that I'd instinctively know where I was so could forget about my finger counting.

Anyway, I'll keep playing around with it and update as I go.

What have the Romans ever done for me?

For those of you that know me will understand what I mean when I say I use the Roman Room method for memorising information. Well, I had a eureka moment last night whilst practicing with some cards and realised I may have come up with something not many people have done before. At least, I can't find anyone talking about it on the Internet if they do use it.

I put a pair of cards in each place on my 10 stage route per room. So the total cards per room is 20. I figured out last night that I can put 50 cards per room by making a slight modification to the method.

I take the first point of the 10 stages in the room and link the first card to that. Then, the object of the second card is linked to the first card which means I've still not moved from my first point. I then take the object of the 3rd card and link that to the second object etc. etc. until I have 'Stacked' 5 cards in one location. Then, move on to location number 2, link the next card with that and so on.

Got quite excited about it cos I can basically get a whole pack of cards in one room meaning my storage capacity has gone through the roof! I also noticed that because all 5 cards were linked together I found it much easier to memorise because if I forgot one there were normally at least 2 cards linked to it in some way.

I have christened this method..........................................Roman Stacking

Now I'm off to go and giggle like a little girl cos I'm all excited about it.

Oh, please let me know if you hear of anyone else memorising like this. Would be keen to know what results they have been getting.

Ben and the squashed frog

For those that don't know, a squashed frog is a drink made from all manor of things that when combined, seem to resemble a squashed frog. It would appear that a certain Mr Pridmore has a bit of a taste for them.

A bunch of us went out for a great bash on Ben's birthday and great fun was had by all! We ended up eating in Nottingham at a place that does an all you can eat from just about every country you can imagine. I had Italian, Indian, Thai and Chinese before my stomach could take no more. Great place :)

I've slowed up on my training. Finding it a bit tough to get motivated at the moment for some reason. Getting a bit down and depressed about pointless things. I still work at it a few hours a week but really not as much as I planned to. I feel like I need something to work towards so am seriously looking to do some charity and publicity work over the next few months.

I feel a lot quicker, as in things are coming to me much easier than they were before which is great. A lot more comfortable with doing complex images with more than one person/object interacting with another.

Anyway, back to work!

Does this happen to all memorisers?

I'm wondering if there comes a point in every memory man's life where he just has to say something that Ben Pridmore is probably thinking about writing as we speak. Why is a programme like the X-factor so addictive and yet so incredibly poor at the same time? I've just been watching a 16-year-old girl talking about a dream career of not having to work because her singing life would mean she never had to. After hurling abuse at the TV screen, I realise that it was only my blog I could turn to now.

The youth of today confuse me. I was in peterborough this morning and walked past a group of Goths that must have been over a hundred strong...... as in seriously, there was probably 100 Goths there. I've never seen anything like it. I have no problem with Goths at all, in fact, I'm very fond of a lot of the music they listen to. It was just very surprising to see what I can only describe as a gaggle of Goths all flocking towards me looking like they should all be on some kind of suicide watch. Come on, it takes more muscles to frown etc etc.

This is my first non-memory related comment and I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders.

Thank you for reading.........

She's home!

Well, my lovely girlfriend is back and it's great to see her. She's incredibly tanned and looks like a different person!

The memory training over the period of time she was away did not exactly go according to plan. I have no tangible results, although having a couple of days off seems to have helped with the formation of images for some reason.I think I've been pushing myself a bit too hard and my brain is giving up. A Break seems to have allowed my brain to understand what I'm trying to teach it.

I'm really annoyed that I can't make the German championships. I just can't book any more time off work. It would have been great to see everybody again, perhaps next time.

Anyway, I have a best man's speech to prepare this weekend which I will also have to memorise. You'd think it wouldn't take too long, but I'm actually quite nervous that I won't have enough time and the stress of the day will not allow my memory to perform properly! I think this will be a good memory exercise. Speaking in front of people that you know is harder, in my opinion, than speaking in front of people that you don't. If I can do this, it will give me a good little confidence boost!

Thai My Shoe

I think I want to learn a new language and Thai seemed like the best idea!

I've never used mnemonics to learn a language but from doing a bit of research on it I think it could be good fun.

Hasbro got back to me saying they would give me a Trivial Pursuit of my choice for a charity memory event which was nice of them. Just need to sort out a venue, people to help, promotion, a charity to do it for and memorise all the questions!

Life alone.......

Well, it's been five days since my girlfriend went to Thailand. The memory training hasn't exactly been going according to plan. I wanted to spend lots of time practising but unfortunately real life has got in the way. I never realised how hard it was cleaning up after me!

I've been practicing binary and that seems to be going quite well, although there is room for a lot of improvement. I'm becoming a lot more familiar with the groups of digits which makes memorising them much easier. I think that having a couple of days off has actually helped. Sometimes I'm guilty of pushing myself too far, to a point where it becomes nonproductive.

I've been thinking a lot recently about new applications for an improved memory. My girlfriend's mum keeps telling me there must be a way to make money from it! I'm sure she's right, but the idea of sitting down and improving my game of blackjack does not really appeal. I'm sure I'll come up with some great moneymaking scheme but that takes time and energy, neither of which are in great abundance after a few too many beers last night.

Person, action, object

I can't get these 3 words out of my head....................

I'm using person, action at the moment but something keeps trying to tell me to stick an object in there too!

I played around with this a few months ago and got nowhere so gave up but I'm going to give it another crack. It will shorten my routes and will also give me more time on each part of my route to form better images. At least, that's the theory.

Andi Bell broke the world record for speed cards using this method, Ed Cook uses it as well as Josh and they are all getting some excellent times with the cards. Hmmmmmmmm getting a bit excited, yet, strangely frightened of the change...........

Binary developments

Last night I sat down with my girlfriend and put together a pack of 64 cards with 6 digit binary combinations on one side and the person/object associated to the combination on the other. It's great, really helps and I think it will help me to recognise blocks of 6 digits as people and objects much faster than doing the conversion in my head as I go.

My girlfriend goes to Thailand tomorrow for 10 days and I'm planning an immense training program filled with meditation, software training and a bunch of timed events. I will post results as and when relevant.

My stomach, my memory

I've started taking some tablets today for a stomach problem I've had for the last month or so. It's a yeast problem that just makes you feel hungover all the time, groggy, tired, unable to focus etc. I've been putting off taking the tablets because the side effects are really not great, they makes you feel worse before you get better so my memory training has suffered really badly :o(

I wonder how my performance was affected at the championships because of it? I had a bad problem 2 days before hand and I didn't think I could go if I didn't get better but it cleared up to a point that I could function OK.

Anyway, I should be performing much better in a week or so once the tablets have sorted it.

Someone knows me!

I had a photo taken today for the local paper who are doing a little write up on me and the photographer said to me "I know your voice, weren't you on radio 4 talking about this stuff!" My first fan..............well, the first person to know me without knowing me.......if that makes sense............I think I should go back to my hole now.

Bank Holiday Blues

I always feel depressed over the bank holiday. I think it's because I know they won't last forever and real life will kick back in sooner than I think. To cure the depression I immersed myself in some hardcore memory training which went really well today. I had a good practice on www.memorise.org with the flash numbers, displaying 4 at a time for 4 seconds. I missed some of them but I'm getting much better at picking up digits in blocks of 4 now. Practiced 5 packs of cards too which went OK. The Simpsons was on in the background which is always a bit of a distraction.

Tonight I'll read through 2,000 random numbers which I've got formatted in excel and divided up in to blocks of 4. Feeling pretty good about the numbers events now; I know I'm faster even since the championships which is a satisfying feeling.

I've still got no idea what to do for this charity event??? Some quiz game memorised? A huge book of some sort? I'm sure it'll come to me in a dream or something.

2 Saturdays after the Saturday before the World Memory Championships 2006

What an amazing weekend! So much work to do before next year. The goal posts are constantly moving up in this game and good year of practice is defiantly needed before the WMC 2007.

This blog is something for me to post my training results to and hopefully inspire some more people to get involved in this amazing sport. I have some plans this year to do some newspaper slots and perhaps a bit more local TV to drum up some interest in the UK. Out of 33 competitors only 5 of us were British!

I have some crazy plans to do some charity work and do some memory demonstrations there which hopefully will amaze people so much that they have to know more! Team UK will grow, slowly but surely.........

Thanks to everyone at the event: James Ponder, James Patterson (the Welsh Wizard!), Daren Denholm, Ed Cook, Boris Konrad, Joachim Thaler, Corinna Draschl, Joshua Foer, Leung Chun Kit, Palvinderjit Dhesi, Daniela Collado, Andi Bell etc. etc. etc.!!! and of course, the legendary Ben Pridmore. It was commented numerous times how humble Ben was and what a great asset that is with such amazing talent. I know all of team UK agreed with that.

In the mean time, I'm working on my binary by creating cards with the combinations of 6 digits on there to build speed and accuracy. Will keep working on my visualisation and practicing hard with the cards too. I'm going for a perfect recall on a deck in under 2 minutes next year. Got a loooong way to go but I expect to produce some pretty good results so on that note, back to the training!