Update

Memory fans,

For those who read this regularly I apologise for not posting for a while. I've been going through a break up and various other issues that has meant I've not done any training for a while and am very demotivated at the moment. I can't focus on my brain right now, however, I will be getting back in to mind sports some time in 2008 I hope.

Stupid brain

For those that know me and read this blog regularly (if there is anyone!) I am feeling pretty crap again. I have lost motivation and can't seem to get my brain quiet enough to do anything, let alone memory training.

I go through these bouts of depression with no rhyme or reason to them. Hopefully it will only last a little while like normal.

It's a bit silly because I have nothing to be down about! My brain is in better form than ever with personal bests becoming a regular thing when I do train, my home life is good and my work is fine. Perhaps there is something missing in my life I'm not consciously aware of...........hmmmmmm

And after only 1 day............

Wow, the exercise I was talking about yesterday is amazing. It has helped me to refine my images so much it's unreal! I have been performing more consistently and I'm really happy. I've picked up on certain errors that I make with certain combinations and working out ways to correct that so the images are more memorable.

I did 2 packs of cards today. The first one was recalled from my mind and memorised in 3min 12sec. I made 3 mistakes on the recall which is pretty good considering I had no cards to refer to. The second deck was in 3min 1sec and I reordered a deck of cards in 2min 49sec. It was amazing. The images were so clear and I just picked the cards up one after the other with no gaps at all. Normally I have loads of gaps that I have to rebuild and that's what takes me over my 5 min time limit.

Very pleased with that and I'm going to keep working hard refining the images, then it's down to some hardcore speed training to perfect it all :)

The quest for perfection

Whist ironing tonight I had an idea that I've started to play with tonight. I was thinking over the couple of decks of cards I was memorising earlier and examining the mistakes I was making. I decided to have a go at another few cards and make a note of certain characteristics on an excel spreadsheet as I recalled to see what aspects of the imagery my brain likes to remember.

It is very interesting and very important I feel for my development. I've always tried to make the best images but never really looked in this much detail at WHY I could remember some things so clearly, and get blanks on others.

I want to put several hundred pieces of data in there to make it a worth while exercise which will take a few days but it will be really interesting to see the results. I have called this my MESS theory. As long as I make a MESS of my images (Movement, Exaggeration, Size and Strangeness) they seem to work well. A higher quality of MESS means I get better images.

I have always believed that there is a perfect system for making images and I think this will go a long way to achieving it.

Not very well :(

I've been ill for the last 2 weeks now. Bad stomach and generally feeling rough so I've got the next 2 days off work and going to see the Dr on Thursday to get myself sorted.

I did some card practice today. It was really good! I managed to do a 2min 37second full deck without error. This was with reordering another deck in under 5 mins according to competition rules. It's the first time I've gone under 3 mins and reordered the deck properly in the 5 min deadline so I'm really pleased with that. It took me 7 attempts with 3 that were only a couple of cards away but I made it! I've just got to get used to going for 5 mins recall and not the 10 I foolishly was working to before.

Even though I'm not going to be in Germany this weekend I'm very excited that it is all happening and can't wait to see the results. Ben must still be on a huge high after his excellent performance at the UK championships so he's my favourite for the day.

Headache + cards = failure

I thought to myself "James, you're not feeling very well, don't expect a world record or anything silly." I wanted to just get through the cards with no errors, which I did no problem is a relaxing 4 minutes. The problem was the recall which again took over the 5 minute limit. That's the bit I need to practice most, not the memorising!

Been feeling rough for a week now, not good for memorising :(

5 Min Numbers

I managed to get some valuable time with Dominic O'brien on Saturday. He suggested that I attempt my 5 minute number attempts on a single sighting. This would give me more time to form good quality images instead of forming a not so good one and having to review it. His 300+ attempt was done this way so he tells me, just one single sighting.

I did a quick practice tonight and managed to do 40 digits with no errors in 60 seconds (nothing amazing). This would mean I could end up with a theoretical 200 digit score at the end if that pace was kept up.

The images were quite easy to form at that speed and the recall on 40 digits was very easy, no blanks, no forced recall. So, I intend to practice this way and see how well I get on over 120 digits. I think it's just about confidence at that amount. It feels fairly easy, but we'll have to wait and see.

I saw it, I saw it with my own eyes!

Just when you need Ben Pridmore to pull out the most amazing world record in front of a huge TV crew from channel 5 he goes and does an absolutely ridiculous time. As in, it's just stupid, I don't even want to write it down......................But I will.

A whole pack of cards in 26.(something not very high) seconds. Amazing. The bar has been raised again and I'm confident it will be a very very long time before anyone else gets close to that.

We had a really good time. Ended up sharing a room with Ben picking up some last minute tips. I broke 5 (maybe six??) of my personal bests on the day so can't complain at that. Improving and finding the events easier every time so very pleased over all. Finished up in 3rd place with a nice trophy and a cheque for £100 which more than covers my costs of getting there.

Dominic O'brien and Tony Buzan were both on hand too with some words of wisdom for us all. Great to see them both again. Dominic is talking about competing next year which will be great to see. I have a lot of practice to do between now and then. I think I'll have a day off, but I'll probably end up doing some training tonight :)

Excitement!

So, not only is my good friend Ben Pridmore going to be competing on Saturday but Dominic O'brien will be there too! Not competing sadly but will be great to see him again.

I think I'm well prepared, using a few new routes for some events so will have to see how that goes. Feeling good about it all, although, I fear excitement will kick in and ruin a good nights sleep.

Will be great to see Boris Konrad again too. Had a great laugh with him at WMC 2006.

Will post results soon memory fans!

The enemy of everyone

I had a few goes at spoken numbers today with a slight variation on the method I was using before. It's hard to explain but it goes something along the lines of holding the image of the last 4 digits in my head whilst the next 2 are being read out (this gains me an extra 2 seconds of visualisation) before creating the next image from the block of 4 digits being read out next. It's too complicated to explain properly but I was please with the following new personal best:

Random spoken digits (1 second per digit) 32 digits memorised without error.

I know most people dread this event, but I'm really starting to like it. It's a great point scorer if you can get anything above 30 digits. Still room to go further but pleased with the new personal best.

Had a bad practice with the random digits. Was trying to go faster than I normally like to try and speed things up but I ended up with very fuzzy images and didn't get very far.

Better get practicing!

It turns out I'm going now thanks to Phil Chambers. He's going to sub me for the trip so I don't have to worry about finances which is a big relief. Just got to get some practice in before the competition now! Will be great to compete with Ben again, well, more watch him than compete with him.

I really want to get a good score on the 5 minute numbers and to be able to get a deck done in under 5 mins now. It's getting annoying! I'm good for 120 digits I think for Saturday and I've done the re-ordering of the cards in a good time too so pleased with all that.

Really excited now!

UK Championships

I'm a bit up in the air about going to the competition on Saturday next week. I haven't really done much practice and I'm not feeling too good at the moment either. Got lots on and don't really fancy spending cash at a time when I have none either. I'll see how I feel closer to the time..........

German Competition simon reinhard + new personal best

Wow........Simon Reinhard has been working hard! Very impressive and congratulations to him for beating the still very impressive World Champion.

Like Ben, I have really got the competition bug and am really looking forward to the next UK competition. I've got my sights set on 200 digits in 5 minutes now. Not for the next event, but I've worked some times out and I don't think it will be long until I can do it. Over 300 though is just crazy!

..............................................

Didn't want to write a second post so tagging this on to the first! Just set a new personal best in the numbers:

110 digits in 5 minutes - No errors.

I memorised 120 quite comfortably but memorised a 57 instead of a 27 and ended up with 110 which is OK.

New personal best on 5 minute numbers

Using my new review system today I thought I'd have an official crack at my 5 minute number personal best. It is so much easier, and although it didn't go 100% according to plan (I had to check 8 digits on paper to make sure they were right) the end result was as follows:

108 random digits, memorised in 5 minutes, no errors.

It felt really quite easy and I'm looking at a realistic 120 with no errors in the next couple of weeks. I can relax so much more because I just keep going up to when the clock stops, no re-reading of anything.

Card reordering

I have been working today on the fastest way to reorder a deck of cards after they have been memorised. Those in the know will remember my annoyance at thinking I had a leisurely 10 minutes which turned out to be 5 minutes at Cambridge.

So, I memorised a deck as normal and got on to the ordering of the deck. I found the fastest way for me by a long way is to put the cards in front of me in strips i.e. all the hearts then in another line all the diamonds etc. and then pick the cards from that. The shuffling through the cards lost so much time it wasn't practical.

For the first time I managed to order a deck I had memorised previously in a little under 3:40 seconds which was satisfying. Enough time to go through again and spot any errors.

Germany this weekend

I'm going to be in Germany when the championships is happening! However, I will be 5 hours away at the Nurburgring so won't get to see any of it :(

I hope that Ben can go as I'm really keen to see how much his hard work has paid off.

I need to get my head down more before the UK Championships in July if I want to get moving up the rankings. I'm confident in the new ways I'm doing things which has involved changing the way I recall things mostly, not the actual memorising itself. Doing my first recall when I've filled one of my roman rooms in my head is working very very well and increasing my confidence greatly. I can picture being able to go through 2 rooms (80 digits or 40 cards etc) in one go and then doing a mental review of both rooms very soon and being accurate. So much of getting this right is about belief and trust. I'm learning now to see each challenge as a series of rooms for me to fill, not "oh my god! I've got to use 20 rooms for all of that!" and talking myself out of it.

Excited to see the results from Germany so roll on weekend :)

New Idea

I've not been posting a lot recently. I've been very busy with various things and memory training has fallen by the wayside. However, I did play around with a new idea I had based on my problems reordering a deck fast enough in Cambridge.

I had no problem remembering the cards, I just couldn't get them in order fast enough so I needed a new method. I've come up with a way which is much faster for me.

What I'm doing is memorising the deck as normal and then on the recall take each card one at a time and put it in place instead of going from the start and finding the first card. So, I'll go - Ace of hearts, near the end, 2 of hearts at the start, 3 of hearts just after that etc. until I've built up the basics of the deck order. I should end up with 26 pairs of cards that are basically in order then it's a simple matter of picking up the 26 pairs in order to build the complete deck.

My other idea was to take the first 26 cards and lay them out and then match the pairs in any random order then then put the whole deck together at the end based on the 26 pairs.

It's very hard to explain but I can move through the cards a lot faster this way and will be able to put the deck back together much faster I believe. I had a spare 5 minutes (literally!) before work this morning and memorised a quick 20 cards (1 room for me) and then flipped through an ordered deck to find the pairs and put the deck together as above. It worked really well.

Birthday tomorrow

It's my birthday tomorrow and I wanted to have one last rant whilst I'm still 27. I came to the conclusion last night that I hate most people. I was driving through town to pick my girlfriend up and was chased down the road by 2 pikey chavs shouting abuse at me! Of course, I stopped and put the car in reverse with the full intent to run them both over to teach them a lesson but thought better of it. I'm not sure if they would let me memorise cards in jail for 20 years.

On the way home, on the same corner, another guy yelled at the car again, this time with his top up exposing his lard. The only conclusion I can draw from this is that most people are shit and deserve to be hated until they can prove themselves worthy of being liked.

What happened to being nice and helping old ladies across the street and listening to their stories of how they rationed in the war? The youth of today........guilty until proven innocent I say.

I'm off to go and start random fights with people in hoodies for looking at my girlfriend, or if they didn't look at her, ask them why they didn't and start a fight anyway.

Intital practice with mental review

I had a go at a quick 80 digits this morning followed by a 40 digit burst to test how long it takes for me to do the mental review and not re-read any of the numbers I was memorising. I can safely say It is a much better way for me to be working. My error rate was perfect and my speed (had I carried on at that pace) would have allowed me to get a fairly comfortable 166 digits in 5 minutes.

I could recall the number (all 120 digits) after 1 mental review 15 minutes later which gave me great confidence too for the longer events. I need to get a new review plan together now to accommodate the new system as I think I will need a lot less time than I used to.

Learn and remember

I'm working my way through Charles Garavan's book - Learn and Remember for Leaving Certificate which he generously gave to me in return for some feedback on the contents. I'm only 2 chapters in and I'm already thinking about how it can help me with not just regular day to day learning but also my training for competition.

There is a very interesting section on reading information and remembering it. The short version is that if you read information it is not as good as remembering it from your brain i.e. don't keep re-reading information, test yourself on it from your memory. The theory goes that your brain will remember this much clearer and make it more relevant and consequently you will have greater recall.

I'm going to play around with this on the different events we do in competition. I'll try reading through the first 40 digits as normal and instead of going back over the numbers, just close my eyes and see all the images in their location again before moving on to line 2 and repeating. I'm excited to see how this will impact my results.

More soon memory fans