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So you want to win a memory competition? You’ve come to the right place. I’llHere I take you on a journey through the tips, methods, and strategies I used to train for and win the World Memory Championships.
I should say upfront that I don’t consider myself to have any innate memory talent. My progress has come through training, applying the methods I’ll soon lay out. My first exposure to memory techniques didn’t come until I picked up Joshua Foer’s Moonwalking with Einstein as a 21-year-old college student. Eager to learn how to learn, I caught the memory bug.
As with any goal, start by deconstructing these motivations. Why set yourself the goal of winningdo you want to win a memory competition? Are you simply trying to better yourself, perhaps to learn more efficiently? Or are you dead set on destroying the competition? For me, the appeal of memory training is three-fold: it’s fun, challenging, and educational. I love the thrill of competition—from high school sports to board games—and I recognize and appreciate that memory training gives me an outlet for that competitive energy. As a medical student, I also use these same memory techniques, so the fact that sport memory acts likeit feels like cross-training for learning is another powerful motivator. Becoming world champion had always been a dream, but these three goals were my driving forces. Defining these motivations and giving yourself a sense of purpose are essential first steps.
The Memory Athlete’s Toolkit
Now let’s dive into the building blocks you’ll need to catapult your memory to new heights. You’ve already learned about the journey method and basic codes for numbers, cards, and binary. We’ll first dig deeper into these two key pieces of preparation.Familiarizing
- Journeys – Which disciplines will likely require journeys? Sequence-based events like cards, numbers, and words.
- Systems – Which disciplines require code-based systems with premade images? Events with abstract information like cards and numbers.
Now it’s time for you to build your own journeys and systems, as these are the key tools you’ll use on your quest to become a memory champion. But what are the best ways to build these? And what common pitfalls can you avoid from the start?
Journeys
Journeys form the keystone of a memory athlete’s arsenal. First, decide roughly how many loci you’ll need for your competition. For instance, if you plan to memorize 100 digits 4 times—using a 2-digit system placing 2 images per locus—be sure to have at least 100 total loci set aside for these events. That’s the easy part. Next, brainstorm as many potential journeys as you can. Mentally scan through you and your friends’ homes, schools, and cities. Over the years, I’ve cobbled together a list of about 300 potential journeys, everything from my college dorms to the set of the TV show “The Office.”
Armed with this list, your next challenge is to choose effective loci. Consistency is the memory athlete’s friend. I always break my journeys down into logical areas, each with a consistent number of loci—usually five—in each. Since childhood homes generally make great first journeys, let’s use yours as a case study. For example, you might select the front yard of your home as your first area, the foyer as your second, and the living room as your third, depending on your home’s layout. This makes it easy to track your loci count. I navigate through these areas consistently too. For the living room, start near the entrance and move counter-clockwise. It’s especially important in sport memorymemory sport to keep your loci spaced out (both vertically and horizontally), functional, and unique. For example, you might choose the ceiling fan in your living room for some vertical depth. In the fireplace, your images may always be aflame. If you also pick the couch, avoid choosing loci with similar functions—places you sit or relax on—like an armchair or a stool.
Creating journeys has always been a haphazard process for me, and I didn’t learn to do it well until I’d already made most of mine. That need not happen to you. Follow these tips and your journeys will serve you like well-oiled machines.
Systems
Nail down a system for each event at your competition. For the numbers and cards disciplines, you might choose to create systems like those discussed earlier: the Major code-based 2-digit system and the Farrow Card Technique. If you’re ambitious and willing to put in extra time, there are many gains to be had with larger systems. If you’re interested, I encourage you to research 3-digit and 2-card systems, which are the systems I and many others use.
Regardless of which systems you choose, you still have decisions to maketo make some decisions. Should your system be made entirely of inanimate objects? Or should you also include people—celebrities, friends, family members? If so, what’s the percentage breakdown? Personally, I love using people. Their characteristic personalities, voices, and behaviors automatically add an extra layer of meaning. Choose people you like or with whom you’re intimately familiar. After all, you’ll be seeing a lot of them. Since I’m a Harry Potter fan, imagining Harry struggling to catch a snitch made of emeralds is an especially meaningful visual. People—from Harry to Captain Kirk to my grandmother—make up a third of my personal systems, the other two-thirds being objects.
As with your loci, choose images with unique looks and functions. Having both a pistol and a rifle is probably a bad idea, unless you have a very specific way of differentiating the two. Realize that everyone learns and operates differently. What works for me may not work equally well for you, and vice-versa. Don’t be afraid to experiment. For images that give you trouble, try swapping them out or adjusting their looks and functions.
For any word-based disciplines, how many words should you place on each locus? There’s no perfect answer, but the consensus among top memory athletes is two. That way, you can quickly create a strong association between the two words. Take this example: apple, donkey. Your instinct might be to imagine a donkey made entirely of apples, an “apple donkey.” When you have to draw associations between three or more images, that becomes increasingly difficult. As with everything, experiment, but I’m putting in a strong vote for two images per locus. I myself was convinced that three was best, but ultimately I switched and improved my scores by about 25%.
Train like a Champion
So, you’ve fashioned your own personal memory training toolkit. Armed with journeys and premade images, you’re officially a memory athlete. One final touch: hardware. Get yourself a pair of noise-reducing earmuffs or earplugs. Focus is key, so blocking out distractions—especially noise—is critical.
Set Yourself Up to Succeed
In every event, start by choosing a dream score, a score that would make your opponents shake in their boots. If you’re reading this, you probably already have an idea what those scores look like. If you don’t, find them. Be 100% confident in yourself. You can hit your dream score. I would never have believed I could hit any of my current personal bests. Memory athletes today have quadrupled records set just 15 years ago. It’s a mental game, the “Roger Bannister Effect” at work.
Prior to 1954, no human had ever run a mile in under four minutes. Bannister, a medical student in England, surpassed the mark by a mere 0.6 seconds. Just 46 days later, one of his rivals knocked nearly 2 more seconds off his record. Today, nearly 500 runners have done it. Recognize that, like the 4-minute mile, most barriers are psychological. Be Roger Bannister. Set the standard.
Craft a training schedule that sets you up for victory. Practice all the events regularly, but limit yourself so that you avoid burnout. Find that personal sweet spot. Top memory athletes train anywhere from 30 minutes (Johannes Mallow) to 3 hours (Jonas von Essen) to 8 hours (Wang Feng) per day. Personally, I shoot for around 30 minutes to an hour. I find this long enough to make quality improvements but short enough so I don’t lose interest.
Rehearse the Essential Skills
Since different competitions work differently, train appropriately. Replicate the actual competition conditions as accurately as possible. For World Memory Tournament events, accuracy is paramount. Spend a portion of your training memorizing carefully or reviewing appropriately so that what you memorize sticks perfectly.
That said, developing your speed is essential to your improvement as a memorizer. You can’t memorize what you don’t read, so you need to be able to read through numbers, cards, and words like lightning. Being able to read off your premade images—to go from “09” to Spiderman, for instance—is the essential skill. Train that. Spend part of your daily training reading through cards or numbers without actually memorizing or recalling. Just see your images. Doing these “visualization drills” allows you to really know your images without spending extraneous time recalling. I’ll say it again: speed is key. If you take a lot longer to memorize than to do your visualization drills, you’re spending too much time at each locus. True, you could spend minutes imagining every detail of Shrek crushing your mailbox, but you shouldn’t. Your memory’s a lot better than you give it credit for. You don’t need an inordinate amount of time to tie images into loci. Practice reading so fast that you make mistakes. Pushing yourself outside your comfort zone like this is the single most effective way I know to improve.
Train Smart
As you progress, be sure to keep meticulous notes. Becoming a top memory athlete is as much about training intelligently as it is about training consistently. In addition, tracking your personal bests and constantly challenging yourself to crush them is a great motivator. Each time you train an event, analyze your performance. Why did you make the mistakes you made? Did you move too slowly? Are you spending too much time at each locus? What should you focus on for your next try? Often, I make small adjustments to the images I miss. For instance, I would sometimes confuse my “rock wall” (477) with my “waterfall” (850), since they’re both cliff-like structures. Now, any images that interact with the rock wall will barely manage to stay atop it, while images interacting with the waterfall go crashing over the edge.
Finally, find a training buddy or group with whom you can share scores. Memory sport can be a lonely endeavor, but it doesn’t have to be. Going back and forth with a friend trying to outdo each other makes things that much more enjoyable. Feed off each other’s improvements. I trained my entire first year essentially solo. In the years since, I’ve helped start a small training group which regularly corresponds via Skype, and I’m better for it. Use this mini-Roger Bannister Effect to your advantage.
Compete like a Champion
After much diligent training, the championship day has finally arrived. How should you handle it? First and foremost, I try to treat every competition like a learning experience. You’ve worked hard, but have fun with it and don’t take yourself too seriously. You’ve succeeded in large part simply by making it to today.
Generally, to keep my mind and journeys fresh, I cease all training for at least a few days prior to competition, although I’ll still do a few daily visualization drills. In that time, I keep myself as relaxed and clear-minded as possible. That For me, that basically means hanging out with my wife and/or friends. Exercise, take walks, meditate, do yoga, whatever you need to keep yourself physically and mentally limber. In the days before the 2015 World Memory Championships in China, my wife, my father-in-law, and I spent our time enjoying tons of spicy food, exploring the gardens and the panda reserve, and trying not get stampeded run over by mopeds.
On the day of, I’m generally a bundle of nerves, and my advice can be distilled to one word: breathe. Every chance I get—and especially right before each event—I take a handful of deep breaths, which works wonders for me.
The rest is up to fate. You’re going to make mistakes—everyone does—but trust in your training. You’ve put in the work, simulated the competition’s conditions, and elevated your memory to a place you probably thought impossible. You’re already a memory champion!
BONUS
My Number Code
I use a 3-digit system—all number combos from 000-999 get a unique image—based on the Major Code, shown below. Each digit is assigned a corresponding phonetic sound:
0 s, z
1 t, d
2 n
3 m
4 r
5 l
6 j, ch, sh, soft g
7 k, hard g
8 f, v
9 p, b
For a given 3-digit combo, I squeeze the three sounds together to form an image. For example, 375 might correspond to MKL, so I chose “Michael Jordan” as my image for 375. 357 became “milk.” 604 became “chess rook.” 970 became “Biggie Smalls.”
