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Talk at UM

I know its been a good while since I last blogged, and I apologize for that, but I have been super busy. November was the month of me officially switching to my new numbers system (part 1 of 2) and now December is part 2 of 2. The results have been awesome thus far. Unfortunately I won't disclose all the details about the system on here just yet, maybe closer to the US competition in March. But its moving right along. Anyways, for those of you awesome people out there who got a chance to go to my talk at the University of Miami this past Monday, thank you! It was an amazing turnout with about 200 people smashed into a room that holds about 180. I know there was free food, but I really got the impression that everyone there was totally interested in memory and how to improve it. The crowd was really responsive and I feel like they were impressed with what I could do as well as what their own brains have the potential to do as well.

To quickly summarize what I talked about and what I believe are the basic fundamental steps to improving your memory:

1). Use multi-sensory imagery. This involves encoding the information you want to memorize into visual images in your mind's eye. The reason this works so well is because the brain prefers pictures; it thinks in pictures. If you need to memorize a word, picture an image of what the word represents or if that is too abstract, think of an image of something that sounds like the word. For other more abstract things like numbers, equations, language, the hard part is coming up with a code to convert them into images. I briefly mentioned my system for numbers (which you can google for more info - just search things like "the major system" or "the dominic system", both are systems which translate a number to a letter). The point is to be creative. Just like a person learning Japanese, when they first learn the word for "dog", they probably thought they were just looking at a bunch of incoherent symbols that made no sense. But over time, as the person became fluent in the language, the abstract symbols no longer look abstract, they BECOME the image of the dog. The brain can learn to convert things from one to another, even if it seems difficult at the beginning. Like I mentioned in my talk, when I first began with my number system, seeing the number 48 took me a good few seconds to translate to "dog." But now, I look at it and I don't even see the numbers anymore, I just see a dog.

2). Create journeys to store these images! Use a familiar place that you can visualize in your mind with ease and populate it with the encoded images you are trying to memorize. In these journeys, select as many anchor points as you need (anchor points being distinct areas or things along the journey - a room, a wall, a corner of a room, a sofa, a carpet, etc.). The more anchor points, the more storage space and the more powerful your memory will be in holding bigger and bigger amounts of information.

3). When attaching your images to the anchor points, try to use all of your senses. Be as silly, sexual, and/or violent in thinking about your images because those are they types of memories that we hold on to better. Have these images interacting with the anchor points to store them. Be careful when using a specific journey too often, images can become confused and mixed with others. To avoid this, its nice to have multiple journeys which you can cycle through as you memorize different things from day to day.

4). One thing I may not have mentioned in my talk is how to keep things in your memory forever. Obviously in competition I need to forget things as soon as I'm done with whatever I memorized, but say I wanted to keep that 300 digit number I memorized. Then what? Well, simple....review. And, you must keep the Journey you used as the unique, the one and only, journey for that set of numbers. So, you need to review the numbers say, once a day for a week, then maybe twice a week after that, then maybe once a week, once a month, a few times a year, etc. until it makes its way into your long term memory.

Hope that helps! I saw a lot of you taking notes (and filming?) so I hope I was able to help you study for your finals!

Tonight on NBC 6 you can catch my interview from after the talk!

Stay tuned for updates about the World Memory Championship, which begin today!

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What fuels the mind?

I'm kind of in a memory training slump right now, and by slump I mean I'm seeing scores that are a second or a few, slower. For someone who trains their memory everyday and is constantly trying to memorize more in quicker times, that is actually a big difference. What always fascinates me is what I believe to be the reasons for say, a bad day of training. Today is one of those days. My memorization of cards were between 3-5 seconds slower than usual and my memorization of numbers was the same, but with more mistakes. I like to think that certain things enhance the function of the brain. Those things being omega-3 fatty acids, anti-oxidants, exercise, sleep, no stress, sunny days, etc. But sometimes I'm not so sure. I maintain a healthy diet filled with anti-oxidants and omega-3 fatty acids, and I exercise everyday. Obviously, at the level I train at, losing a few seconds here and there isn't that big of a deal - I mean, my memory is still performing incredibly well. It just boggles me when I'm doing everything right and my memory seems a slightly bit off.

Being so in tune with my memory's performance, I am able to notice days where my mind isn't as sharp as it can be. I can tell because my mind doesn't create images as fast as usual and because of that, I tend to be a bit hesitant to carry a fast pace whilst memorizing. It's not that I'm not trying hard to focus and memorize quickly, its just that I physically can't. It's such an odd feeling. A feeling that definitely shows that something I did the day before or a few days before has affected the speed at which my neurons are firing.

What's interesting is that I always tend to see a slight dip in performance on Monday's and Tuesday's. As the week progresses, my high scores come back. Almost as if my activities over the weekend catch up to my brain in the early days of the week. Now some of you maybe thinking that I party too much on the weekends, but in fact I don't. Ever since I started memory training I have cut down on alcohol consumption drastically. 3 months before competition I even cut it out of my diet completely! After having had a few beers on Saturday night though, I wonder if that has a delayed effect on my brain. I wonder if it has to do with airplane travel. Being in a plane with the decrease in air pressure, does it have a lingering effect? I didn't get much sleep Sunday or Monday either (6 hours as opposed to the usual 7 or 8), could that be it? One of these days I need to keep a journal of everything I eat and do on each day and compare it to my memory training scores.

Not really suggesting any solutions to preventing these losses of mental sharpness, just trying to point a few things of interest that I have noticed as a memory athlete. I do strongly believe that blueberries and fish oil pills are the way to go to maintain your overall mental sharpness....that's just a tip from me to you ;)

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Some Mont Blanc Videos

Thought I"d chime in with some updates. So if you wander on to my donations page you"ll see I"ve actually reached half of my fundraising goal! I broke the 20,000 mark yesterday! It"s been a lot of hard work, but I recently received a extremely generous donation from Exdel Corporation. I currently have a few other donations lined up and possibly a large sponsor. That remains to be seen. Also, Climb For Memory will most likely be featured on Pepsi"s www.refresheverything.com. I"ll know for sure after this weekend, and then I"ll need all of your votes to win! I"ll keep you posted!

As for climbing, here The clandestine labs then chemically extract 90 to 100% pure buy-detox.com from the leaf. are few updates....

1. I uploaded some videos of my last climb of Mont Blanc on youtube. Check them out:

Mont Blanc at 4am

On the col of Mont Day of the TestYou should be present in the online permit test centre before the appointed time of your test. Tacul

The summit of Mont Blanc!

2. Training for Everest is going awesome. I"m in the best shape of my life!

3. There was only 1 Everest summit this Fall and it was the first one (in Fall) since 2008. There were a few other Himalayan summits recently on Cho Oyu and Manaslu (sadly also a death on Cho Oyu). A good reminder that climbing these mountains is always risky and that summits aren"t always a sure thing...

Until next time.

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How to Memorize Numbers

Here is a tutorial for memorizing numbers, one of my best areas of memorization. In fact, I currently hold the US record for memorizing the most amount of digits in 5 minutes - 303 digits. I'd like to think that aside from memorizing names & faces, number memorization techniques are by far the most useful in the everyday setting. Too often we rely on our iPhones or Blackberry's to store all the numbers we need to know. What happened to the days where you knew all your friends' phone numbers by heart? We've become mentally weak. None of us try to use our brains, especially for things that feel like it is straining our brain (memorization of numbers, calculation of numbers, etc.). This is a shame because it's basically like we all used to have firm abs and now we don't go to the gym anymore so our tummies feel like soft jelly. YEAH. Investing a bit of time to develop your own number system is DEFINITELY worth doing. It is such an amazingly useful tool and I highly recommend it. With a bit of practice, you'll eventually be looking at numbers like they mean something (not just like they are some abstract symbol) and you'll be able to create stories out of them that are far more memorable than the actual sequence of symbols that they are. So here goes....

    HOW TO MEMORIZE NUMBERS

This is an explanation of how I memorize numbers. When I first started I was only able to do 40 or so digits (in about 10 minutes) by pure brute repetition. But after a few weeks of practice I was able to get it up to nearly 100 digits in 5 minutes perfect. Now I can do roughly ### digits in 5 minutes and I get better at it all the time (sorry...not revealing my current best scores....for competition purposes, but lets just say its over 200 digits and its A LOT). All it is is practice. There is no person that CAN'T do this, trust me. Just practice. It will come.

To memorize numbers, you need two things:

1. A specified image for each set of numbers (either a 2 digit or 3 digit system - ill explain below) 2. A mental "journey" to store each image when you memorize them.

When I first set out to do this, I decided to start with a two digit system. There is a 1 digit system, but it is not very powerful for memorizing large numbers - I won't discuss that here. A two digit system takes every 2 digit number from 00 to 99 and assigns a unique image to each. If you are serious about learning how to do this, you need to sit down and work out all 100 images. It takes some time to write, and to learn completely, but once you have it in your head, its there forever and you can use it at will. 3 digit systems also exist, but require more time (1000 images) and effort to learn. The payoff is huge if you have the time to learn it though. The world record for memorizing numbers in 5 minutes is 405 digits, using this system. Amazing!

So with my 2 digit system, I sat down and came up with images for 2 digit number. The reason we want to assign images to numbers is because the memory works best with pictures/images. This is why we can easily remember things that happen in a movie, but find it difficult to memorize a set of numbers. A movie is visual and entirely made of pictures, while numbers are abstract symbols that have no attached meaning. We need to attach meaning to numbers. By "image," I mean make each number pair represent something. This "something" can be anything, but I personally choose people (I find it easiest to imagine people). By "people" I mean someone who is either a friend, family member, cartoon, or a celebrity (basically someone memorable). Next, I also give every number pair or "person" an action. By "action" I mean a verb that makes sense and relates to the person. For example, my mother is the number 65 and her action/verb is cooking (because she always cooks). You always want to make the associations between person and action to be natural. What I mean is that you shouldn't be giving your mother the action of playing cricket or something (unless she actually does play cricket!).

So, you should go through each of the 100 people you have representing each number pair and ask yourself "what do I imagine this person doing?" Whatever comes to mind first should be the action. This is because when you are memorizing the numbers at high speeds, you don't want to even think about what the number pair stands for what, it needs to be natural, like being able to read a foreign language fluently.

Now, you can also enhance the system even more. The method I just described above is called the PV method (Person/Verb), but you can also add an "object" (PVO). So for my mother who is the number 65, her action/verb is cooking, and her "object" is a cooking pan (makes sense right?). Ok so, now, when I'm memorizing numbers, I split it into groups of 6 digits. Why 6? Because 2-2-2 (Person-Action-Object). I make a little story. The first pair is the person, the second pair is the action, and the third pair is the object. So for example, 65 is my mother, 66 is Satan (his action is setting something on fire), and 87 is Michael Jackson (his object is a nose). So, if I ever encountered the 6 digit group 656687 in a sequence of numbers. I would see that as 65-66-87 or "My mother - setting fire to - a nose" (again, Person-action-object). Let's flip the order around. Say the group was 876566, that would be "Michael Jackson - cooking - fire." This mini-story is what I memorize, not the actual numbers!

Turning the numbers into people:

When I teach people this part, I usually have them start with the obvious numbers that stick out to them (23 is michael jordan's number, 66 is the devil's number, etc.). These are easy to associate to people because they are already associated with people. Different people might have different associations for numbers and people, so it's not a fixed thing. 01 might remind someone of George Washington (the first president) while others might see the same number as Lady GaGa because she is always #1, at the top of the charts....who knows....everyone's mind works differently. You have to go with what comes to mind first.

Once you have as many of those numbers taken care of (it may not be that many, actually), you need to transform the rest of the number pairs that may not be so obviously linked to a person. There are different ways to do this but I do it as following - look at each digit of the number pair and assign the following letters to each number:

1 - A 2 - B 3 - C 4 - D 5 - E 6 - S 7 - G 8 - H 9 - N 0 - O

Most of those makes sense - its just matching the number to the nth letter of the alphabet. The few exceptions are 6,9, and 0. I chose S for 6 because 6 sounds very "s"-like and N for 9 because it sounds very "n"-ish. 0 is O because the zero looks like an O.

So for each number pair, I create a two-letter pair. So 72 would translate to GB, which I then translate to the initials of a person (George Bush). It may be slow at first when you memorize to translate back and forth between numbers and letters, but with time it will become instinctive. Here are some of my examples (some may seem totally random, but they have just become what they are with time. You must do the same…whatever makes sense to you, do it!):

00 - vampire (used to be Ozzy Ozbourne, but it was easier to think of a vampire - they both suck blood from things haha) 01 - Alice in Wonderland (for some reason 01 just looks like Alice to me) 02 - Jedi (Obi Wan Kenobi 02 = OB as in OB1 ) 03 - Jack =Black (03 = OC, Jack Black was in a movie called "The OC") 04 - Oscar De La Hoya (04=OD) 05 - Abraham Lincoln (Abe is on a 05 dollar bill) 06 - Steve Jobs (06=OS, as in OSX operating system for the Mac) 07 - James Bond (like 007)

Storing the numbers in your memory:

So now the numbers have meaning. When you are about to memorize some numbers, you need a place to store all the numbers or "people," "actions," and/or "objects." To do this, take a familiar place like your home or your work place and make a mental journey through it (it can be any place you know well). While doing that, choose between 20-30 (depending on how much you want to memorize) different points of interest (POI). These POIs can be rooms or even pieces of furniture - doesn't matter - they just needs to be significant. Make these journeys through the POIs make sense, don't jump around, make it go in a sensical order. For example, I use my home as a journey with these POI:

1. bedroom 2. bathroom 3. closet 4. hallway 5. brothers room 6. sister's room 7. tv room 8. kitchen etc…

The journey you come up with should be intuitive and you shouldn't need to memorize it. If you do, you're trying too hard - find something simpler or easier or more familiar to you. A good idea is to maybe work your way clockwise through the POIs. For example, in my home, I start in my bedroom and next I go to my bathroom because it is the closest room. I don't jump to the kitchen from my room because there are other rooms in between - I go in a logical order. Once you have the journey mapped out in your mind, make a mental run through before you use it for memorizing. Imagine yourself walking through it. These journeys that you create will be reused. They are, in a sense, your hard-drive. The more you create and use, the more Gigabytes you have to store things. For numbers I have over 10 different journeys I cycle through when I train (each with over 40 POIs). If you do a bit of math...If I used all POIs and all journerys, I would have 400 different slots for memorizing things. For numbers, I can put 6 digits in each slot, so that allows my brain to memorize a 2400 digit number no problem. The even cooler thing about these journeys, is that I can create an infinite amount. I've lived in so many different houses and countries over the years, that I have a lot of other journeys that are waiting to be used. I only stick to these 10 journeys because I am extremely comfortable with them and I have no desire to memorize 2400 digits in one sitting lol (maybe 500, but that's it haha).

Ok, now you are ready. Get a really long number to memorize. When you begin memorizing it, take the first two digits. What you want to do is take the first two digits and visualize the person associated with it doing the action of the second number pair, with the object of the third number pair. You want to visualize this person/action/object happening in the first room in your Journey (in my case, my bedroom). Let's take the example from earlier:

We had my "Mother setting fire to a nose", so we need to store this in the first location of my journey - my room. On to the next 6 digits…I create my image, and then store it in the second location of my journey (the bathroom). Etc...

That is what I memorize. I visualize these things happening in each of those locations. Try to use as many senses (try to imagine sound, color, smell, etc. ) as possible to make the images more vivid. Once you have one image in your head, move on to the next group of digits and the next POI. Don't look back. You'll be surprised how much your brain can remember without reviewing! That is the beauty of this technique - no review is needed - you can just look at each number group once. Keep working in number groups until you reach the end of your memorization time. To recall the numbers, just go back to the first POI of the journey you used and your first image should be waiting for you there! Then make your way around all the POIs and translate the images back to numbers. I know it sounds crazy but it works.

Building up speed:

At first, memorizing a lots of digits will be slow. It will seem like you are memorizing a lot and it might seem extremely mentally draining. That's alright, your brain has probably never done anything like this before. With practice, it will become normal and easy.

One thing to note, after using your journey for the first time, you will remember whatever you stored in them for a good while. You have to let it be forgotten (this might mean waiting a few days before you re-use the journey). What I do in the meantime, since I train everyday, is I have multiple journeys that I alternate between everyday while the other ones get "forgotten." There is nothing from stopping you from creating multiple journeys.

Anyways, that is it. Hope that helped! Email me at climbformemory@gmail.com if you have any questions or if anything was unclear.

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Simpler is better.

So Everest training is going well. Nearly 6 months from now I will be leaving for Kathmandu to tackle the beast of a mountain. More importantly (in my mind anyways), in just under 6 months from now will be the 2011 USA Memory Championships. I am training equally hard (if not harder) for that competition. My regiment is pretty strict and I've been really tough on myself on making sure I get certain times during training and that I do a specific amount of reps of memory exercise each day. For those of you who aren't in the sport (everyone should be!), you may have read from previous blog posts that there are varying levels of methods that people use, whether it be for numbers, words, cards, etc. Typically for numbers say, there are 3 levels. The first level is a 1-digit system which means one would assign each 1 digit number to an image (1 = a stick, 2= a swan, etc.). That's simple enough, and an easy way to start. But if you want to memorize a 100 digit number you're going to have to look at each of those 100 digits as 100 separate images. NIGHTMARE! Not only is that a lot, it's also bound to have dozens of repetitions (i.e., you will have to memorize on average 10 swans and 10 sticks for a 100 digit number...that's confusing!). So most people abandon that method and go for the next level up, the 2-digit system.

The 2-digit system requires every 2 digit number to have an associated image (00 - vampire, 01 - alice in wonderland, whatever!). This is a bit better. If you encounter the same 100 digit number, you only need 50 different images. Woohoo for halfing! Some people take it a tad further and add actions and objects to those 2 digit numbers (i.e. 00 is a "vampire", but also has the action of "sucking blood", and the object "fangs"). These people then number crunch a little bit and group digit pairs by 4's or 6's. This reduces a 100 digit number to 25 and 17 images respectively. That's pretty efficient, only 17 images to represent 100 digits - pretty awesome.

The next level up varies a bit but it involves, in one way or the other, mapping every 3 digit number to an image. Do the math; that means you need 1000 images, that's 900 more images than the 2-digit system. Now, the perceived holy grail of all number systems is the 3-digit system that groups triples into a person/action/object so that you are memorizing 9 digits in one image (reducing that 100 digit number down to about 11 images). This system is a TON of work, and to be really great at it, you need to be able to see any 3 digit number and instantaneously recognize it as its image. This is possible if you practice hard enough. Compare it to learning 1000 vocab words in a completely foreign language - not the easiest thing in the world. And if you enjoy a social life, it makes it THAT much harder to devote time to. Some people break the system down to some hybrid that uses 2 digit and 3 digit groupings (i.e., 2-2-3 (person/action/3 digit object) or 3-2-3 (3 digit person/action/3 digit object)), but it all boils down to a lot of work.

I have spent a lot of time recently preparing to switch to a 3 digit method, but I realized yesterday that it may not really be necessary. At least, I don't believe so. I've been using a 2 digit method for about 2 years now and with all the training I've been doing (lots of speed drills), I've been able to push my system to places I never thought I could. Last year I was all about upping my system and thinking that increasing my systems to have more images would be better. Although I have no doubt that it would, I don't want to waste time starting a new system while I could be speeding up the one I have right now. Just yesterday I came close to breaking a memory WORLD RECORD! 100 digits in a minute (the world record is 102). That means, i can potentially memorize a 500 digit number in 5 minutes (don't worry, I'm not even close to that yet - but eventually), all with a 2 digit system. If I'm not mistaken, I think Dominic O Brien memorized 316 digits in 5 minutes with a 2 digit system. That's amazing. Same with memorizing cards - Boris Konrad recently posted on Facebook that he memorized a deck of cards in 28 seconds with a 1 card system!! That's nuts. That means he looked at each card in a deck for half a second each. What has to happen in that half second is two things - recognition of the card's image, and storing that image in a location. I think typical recognition of objects occurs in the brain between 100-400 milliseconds. So what Boris has trained his brain to do is memorize quickly not create a powerful system.

My point in this blog is that for those that want to learn some memory techniques or for those that are trying to get better, you don't need a complicated system. Get to know your system if you have one already and if you don't have one, don't feel overwhelmed by those who use the larger systems - it means nothing. Make whatever system you use your baby. I remember last year, when I wanted to improve my memorization of cards, I spent 1 day with each of my cards. One day I took the 8 of Spades out to lunch (Homer Simpson). It sounds insane and somewhat disturbing, I know. But what I was doing was forcing my brain to stop seeing 8 of Spades, but instead, Homer Simpson (the image the card represented).

Alright, hopefully I've inspired you! Get your memory systems going! Train your systems if you got 'em! Prepare for the 2011 competition!

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7 Months...

Hi all, I hoped you enjoyed my last blog entry on remembering names. Coming soon is how to memorize numbers!

So, it's about 7 months before I leave for Nepal to climb Mt. Everest. I have been doing some long endurance training 6 times a week and I'm noticing some awesome results. I've been running close to 10 miles at times, without getting tired. I've never been able to do that before. Before I climbed Mt. McKinley I wasn't even running that long while training and I summited with no problems; so that's an awesome sign.

Right now, the issue is sponsorship. I've managed to raise about $5000 from friends and family, which I believe to be really really awesome. But, I'm at the point where I need large corporate sponsorship to make this thing happen. I've been sending out my sponsorship packages to company after company. Now, all I need is one or two companies to come on board and it should be all set, but the hard thing is finding them. If any of you readers own a company or have some connection to someone who owns a company, and you think there might be some interest in having their company logo photographed on the summit of Mt. Everest, email me at climbformemory@gmail.com!

In memory related news, Boston is having a Memory Walk at the end of September around Cambridge (http://www.alz.org/memorywalk/) which I will be participating in. Hopefully I can let my cause be known and maybe spread some memory techniques as I walk. Also, the UK Memory Open was this past week, and Ben Pridmore, the reigning World Champ, won again! He did some awesome things like memorize 12 packs of cards in half an hour and 3620 binary digits in half an hour as well. Are you kidding me? Can you imagine doing either of those things? The crazy thing is, and this has always been my mantra, is that "ANYONE CAN DO IT!" Ask Ben, ask anyone. Ben is just a regular guy who reads comics and works at an accounting firm in England (and forgets where he places he keys a lot haha). All he has done is just learn a memory system and work at it every day. I have done the same. I no longer look at information and shy away from it, I look at information and absorb it if I need to, without much effort. It's a pretty cool feeling to be able to do that.

Anyways, stay tuned for more news. It's getting close to crunch time, so things are gonna pick up!

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How to Memorize Names

One of the hardest things to do is remember names. Names can often be so random and abstract, and that can make them extremely difficult to learn and/or remember. Unfortunately, name memorization skills are some of the most important and necessary skills to have in everyday life. Remembering someone's name can make the difference between closing a deal or not, impressing a friend or even a potential love interest….you know the deal! People love to hear their name. Try it out on a waiter, for example. If you memorize their name and keep using their name throughout the meal, I guarantee you the service will be better. It's a plain fact that people like to hear their own name. That's why when someone you haven't seen in a while or have only met once, remembers your name, you feel really impressed, as if the person has some interest in you. It's a great feeling, and can often lead to other positive things. Applying techniques for memorizing names is not easy at first, but it's the easiest to practice. Everyday you meet new people. Some you will never see again, some you might, and other's you will for sure. In any case, you lose nothing by trying to memorize the name of everyone you meet. Some of you may think that that's impossible, but I disagree. Names can be easy and fun to memorize.

I like to think (as do many other renowned memory experts) that there are 5 or so steps to memorizing someone's name. This method isn't instantly easy, but it's easy to get good at quickly with some practice!

1. FOCUS - The first step is being focused. It sounds obvious, but surprisingly most people aren't focused when hearing a person's name for the first time. Think about it, how many times have you shaken hands with someone as they told you their name while you were off in neverneverland thinking about something else? You need to focus. That is honestly half the battle. Tell yourself mentally, before you meet a person, "what is this person's name?" or "I WANT to know this person's name"; it makes a world of a difference.

2. PREPARE - Once you are in the right mindset to learn a person's name, you need to analyze them. Pick out the most distinguishing feature you notice immediately from their face: curly hair, cute dimple, acne, big forehead, buck teeth, scar, etc. (obviously keep this information to yourself!). This step can be extremely easy or extremely hard, depending on the person. If someone has a unique feature that is obvious, then you can latch on to it quickly. Others who have generic faces or nothing special going on, it can be hard to find something. But, something is ALWAYS there. All it takes is a bit of practice in order to get better at picking out those things quicker. With time, it will become second nature.

3. LISTEN - Next, almost as important as the first. Listen! Make sure when you ask for the name, you actually hear it and understand it in the first place. Another common mistake when learning a person's name is that when one asks for the person's name it's actually neither properly heard nor understood. You need to be adamant about making sure you've heard the person's name properly. So, if you didn't get the name the first time, ASK FOR IT AGAIN! What's the big deal about asking for it once, twice, or even three times more? It's probably more embarrassing to forget a person's name entirely. Also, I've learned not to be embarrassed when asking foreign people for their name numerous times (I even ask for them to repeat it to me slowly and phonetically). I figure, they know their name isn't common and that a lot of people have trouble with it, so whats the big deal? I want to know your name!

4. NAME TO IMAGE - Finally, once you've heard the name, you need to process it. You first need to convert the name into an image, and then associate it with the distinguishing feature you picked out in step 2. There are numerous ways to turn a name into an image. The most important piece of advice I can give is to go with the image that strikes you first, without thinking. To come up with an image, the easiest is to go with a mental image of someone you know that has the same name (famous actor, friend, family, cartoon, etc.). Another way to come up with an image is to break down the name into things that it sounds like (ex: Steve sounds like "stove" or Jessica kind of sounds like "sickle"). It doesn't have to match the name to a T, it only needs to be enough to trigger the name.

5. ASSOCIATION - Once you have your image for the name, you need to associate it to the distinguishing feature from step 2. To associate one thing with the other, you need to create a mental image that connects the two things. Try to make the connection as vivid as possible (violence, humor, erotica, bizarreness are the best kind of memorable things). Use all the senses. Try using sound, color, or even smell!

Let's try an example:

Say the person you are meeting is me. I am tall, have a large nose, spiky hair, etc. If I were you, I would pick out my big nose (but it could be anything else). Once you are ready to hear my name, ask for it. Once I've told you my name, "Nelson," try to instantly come up with something that sounds like Nelson, or reminds you of a Nelson. To me, what comes to my head first is either Nelson Mandella or Nelson from the Simpson's TV show. Let's go with Nelson Mandella. So now you have to link (associate) Nelson Mandella with my big nose. This is when creativity sets in. No one way is correct. Personally, I would instantly think of Mandella as the ex-president of South Africa, serving time in prison (as he did for 27 years, many of those on Robben Island). So why don't we shove Mandella up my big nose and imagine him being IMPRISONED inside. Maybe the action of shoving him into my nose/prison causes it to bleed, or maybe you can imagine the noise it makes as the prison bars slam shut with a deafening CLANG!. Now the next time you see me, you won't struggle to remember my name. Instead, you'll see my big nose (the first thing that jumped out at you anyways) and then remember the prison and how Nelson Mandella was stuck in there. Nose => Prison => Mandella => NELSON! Voila!

Give it a go! If you want to push this technique a bit further, you can always find a list of most common male and female names (look here) and come up with pre-assigned images for each of those names. That way, whenever you hear a certain name, you know exactly what image to think of immediately. Brian => Brain, Steve => Stove, Alice => Lice, Vicky => Icky (slime), etc.

That's All. Go out and start trying it out today!

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Updates

Hello all! It's been about a month since I summited Mont Blanc and I am now in the full swing of Everest training. While the 6 months prior to the climb are the most important in terms of training, right now I am building up my cardio.

8. More. Months.

Good news! The Climb For Memory, Inc. charity has recently been approved by the IRS to become a tax-exempt non-profit. That means that all donations made are 100% tax-deductible!

Stay tuned for training updates and more memory techniques (Remembering names and faces coming up soon!)

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Summited Mont Blanc!

Sorry for the delay, but I only just returned home earlier this week from Europe!

Very exciting stuff...I spent a week in the French/Italian/Swiss Alps acclimatizing and then had a successful summit of Mont Blanc. Mont Blanc is considered the tallest peak in Western Europe (it would be THE tallest in Europe if you didn"t consider certain parts of Russia to be a part of Europe). The peak stands at 4810 meters (15,776 ft). I had a short (relatively) summit day, but it was one of the hardest I have ever faced, mostly because of the lack of acclimatization I had prior.

Mont Blanc is located in Chamonix, France, and is a very intimidating peak when you can see it in all of its glory. If you ever run into climbers in the Alps though, they will tell you they"ve climbed Mont Blanc a hundred times when they were 12 or something too, haha. But aside from that, it is considered a pretty challenging peak (the intensity of the challenge can also vary with the route taken).

I arrived in Chamonix on a Sunday where I met up with the rest of my 6 person group. I had signed up with an expedition group called Chamex. Chamex is the sister company of Himex, the famous Mt. Everest expedition company that has been aired numerous times on Discovery Channel"s "Beyond the Limit" show about climbing Mt. Everest. We stayed in a nice chalet just up the street from Chamonix, in a small town named Argentiere. The first couple days were spent acclimatizing at high altitude, as we made daily excursions into the Swiss Alps and then the Italian Alps the day after reaching altitudes of 12,000ft and up. Acclimatizing to this height is not something that happens overnight, or a week"s time, for that matter. To properly acclimatize it actually takes numerous weeks before your body starts making the appropriate changes. Either way, given a few days to prepare for summiting Mt. Blanc, you have to make do.

We came back down to the chalet in Argentiere to sleep low and recoup our energy for the next two days of climbing Mt. Blanc. Up until this point, the weather had been absolutely phenomenal and was forecasted to stay that way for the remainder of the week. The next day, we took a gondola up to the famous Aiguille du Midi (which stands just over 12,000 ft) to begin our climb and spent the night in a hut just below it (the Cosmiques Hut). These huts are typical of the Alps, and offer rudimentary living accommodations (for the French this means: 30 people bunk beds with unwashed blankets and pillows, bread, wine, and cheese, and water for 5 euros a liter).

Anywho, we slept about 2 winks since everyone was snoring incessantly, and we were up Thus, women leos horoscope should learn to talk about their troubles and take into account partner’s expectations and priorities. again at 3 am for a quick breakfast. My climbing group ate quickly and was out the door in a flash in order to beat some of the crowds. My group was me, a Canadian climber named Tim, and our guide Martin (a young Swedish guy who was convinced we could run up the mountain in under 4 hours, yeah.....). We started off in the pitch black of night with only our headlamps and stars to see. This is always a scary time for me, since you can see nothing except 7 feet in front of you. It"s very easy to freak out. But taking a deep breathe and looking at the millions of stars shining above you can make all the difference of the world. We finally had begun our climb....

The route we took was the Trois Monts routes ("three mountains") which is quite a long slog as it involves climbing over the shoulders of two other peaks before climbing up the actual Mont Blanc (Mont Tacul and Mont Maudit). Like I said before, we started off in the dark, climbing up the relatively steep slopes of Mont Tacul. This part became really nice and relaxing because at around 4:30am, the sun started to rise. There is nothing more beautiful in the world than watching the sunrise while climbing at high altitude. Nothing. It is honestly the thing that makes the pain and suffering of climbing worth it. Finally over the first peak shoulder, we had a little bit of a downhill hike, but soon we were climbing an even steeper wall, the face of Mont Maudit. Now the sun was slowly creeping down to meet us. The snow became a beautiful orangy color. After some tough climbing and a short and slightly technical 50 degree section, we made it over the second peak"s shoulder. We made another small descent (and witnessed a helicopter rescue of someone who was stricken by altitude sickness) and stood at the foot of the final ascent to the summit of Mt. Blanc. The first part was another steep section, which came and went. But then it was followed by the LONGEST slog up a gently sloped football field. This part was extremely difficult because it was where the mind games and altitude effects started to arise and clash with each other. My breathing was rapid and tiring and my head was throbbing with each step. Not only that, but the mental anguish of the long, boring, and final slog did not help. All I wanted to do was quit. Eventually we got to a point where I could see the hill flattening out a bit and I suddenly knew I would be on the summit in a few hundred meters. I started to tear up, as I usually do....and next thing I knew I was on top of Europe!

It"s always amazing how I find the drive within me to make it to the top of these things. But somehow, I always do. I don"t care what anyone says, climbing is 99% mental. I"m in shape. But not incredibly in shape. I honestly believe that it was my mental will that got me to keep going and that got me to the top.

All in all, it was another great climb and great experience. Great training for Everest. Mostly for the reminder of how arduous and taxing a climb can be. Good mental preparation.

To mention memory a bit here...before I left, I had mentioned an article that linked climbers to Alzheimer"s disease. While I climbed and acclimatized for Mt. Blanc, I was still doing my memory training, and seeing very positive results. My card memorization times where actually improving very slightly. This was all very encouraging, BUT I"ve started to notice a slight decline in performance now. Maybe it"s a delayed effect....Another thing I noticed since the climb is that I"ve been a bit more spaced out. I"ve misplaced numerous things and actually lost a pair of sunglasses and nearly a laptop because of it. It could be just coincidence, but I actually do feel that my mind is more prone to wandering or blanking out. When I"m focused, it"s fine, but I feel that maybe climbing can effect my brain in a negative way when I"m not focused. Scary.

Anyways, the future is coming quickly. Everest is in about 8-9 months! Training is in full swing. Memory competitions are on the horizon. I am holding a fundraising event this weekend to hopefully raise some more funds and some more awareness for my climb and Alzheimer"s disease research!

Please check up my posted pictures from my most recent climb! The pictures are here.

Cheers!

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Alzheimer's effects at high altitude...

I'll be leaving for Mont Blanc this Sunday to begin my serious Everest training regiment. I will be bringing my memory exercises up with me on the mountain as well. Interestingly enough, I found an article in an older Outside magazine that discussed studies done on climbers which showed that when they returned from a climb, they showed some pretty frightening things on MRI scans of the brain. Apparently, climbers can experience permanent changes in the brain after being at high altitude for some time. Virchow-Robin spaces in the brain (which are the widening of spaces between blood vessels in the brain) become enlarged. The enlarging of these spaces is exactly what is observed in elderly Alzheimer patients. It is also very common for climbers to return from long expeditions and have difficulty remembering things they once knew before. Scary. This is not the most encouraging news, but it further ties the link between my cause and climbing and memory. It will also be great to further place importance on doing daily mental stimulation in order to keep the mind focused and clear. While I'm on Mont Blanc next week, I'll be testing my memory to see how it performs at higher altitudes and how it is affected once I return down to sea level.

Wish me luck! This climb is the first large step towards bringing Alzheimer's research and awareness to the top of the world! Exciting!

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How to Memorize a Deck of Cards

Memorizing cards seems like it might be a sweet trick for a gambler or magician, but it's actually a fantastic mental exercise and fun too. Hope you enjoy.

HOW TO MEMORIZE A DECK OF CARDS

This is an explanation of how I memorize a deck of cards. When I first started I was only able to do a full deck in 20 minutes with a few mistakes. But after 2 weeks of practice I was able to get it down to nearly 5 minutes, perfect. Now I can do it in 33 seconds (and I keep getting faster with practice). All it is is practice. There is no person that CAN'T do this, trust me. Just practice. It will come.

To memorize a deck of 52 playing cards, you need two things:

1. A specified image for each card 2. A mental "journey" to place each card image when you memorize them

When I first set out to do this, I sat down and gave every card an image. The reason for doing is this is because the memory works best with pictures. This is why we can easily remember things happening in a movie, but find it difficult to memorize a set of numbers. A movie is visual and entirely made of pictures, while numbers are abstract symbols that have no attached meaning. Playing cards also lack meaning - so you must give them meaning by creating associated images. By image, I mean make each card represent something. I chose to make the cards represent people. By people I mean someone who was either a friend, family member, or a celebrity (basically someone memorable). Next, I gave every card or "person" an action. By action I mean a verb that makes sense and relates to the person. For example, my mother is the Queen of Hearts and her action/verb is cooking (because she always cooks). You always want to make the associations between person and action to be natural. What I mean is that you shouldn't be giving your mother the action of playing cricket or something (unless she actually does play cricket!). You should go through each of the 52 people you have representing each card and ask yourself "what do I imagine this person doing?" Whatever comes to mind first should be the action. This is because when you are memorizing the deck at high speeds, you don't want to even think about what card stands for what, it needs to be natural, like a fluent language.

Turning the cards into people

When I teach people this part, I usually have them start with the face cards (all the Kings, Queens, and Jacks). These are easy to associate to people because they have faces on them. What I did when I first began associating them with people was to try and find people that had names that matched the letters on the cards (J,Q, or K). Or, if the picture on the card looked like someone I knew, I would go with that person. Here are some examples:

King of Clubs = Tiger Woods, because he is literally, the King of Clubs (golf clubs) King of Hearts = my dad, he is the "king" of my family and the "hearts" signifies family Jack of Diamonds = my sister Jennifer Dellis, J from Jack and D from Diamonds are the initials for her name King of Diamonds = James Bond, because it reminds me of when he plays cards in casinos

Notice that some of those may not be entirely obvious to you. It really doesn't matter though. You can learn anything if you practice it enough. So think of something, write it down and just learn it. It only has to make sense to you.

Once you have the 12 face cards figured out, you need to transform the rest of the deck. There are different ways to do this but I do it as following: Look at the number and suit of each card as a first and last initial of a person. The number on the card represents the first initial:

Ace - A 2 - B 3 - C 4 - D 5 - E 6 - S 7 - G 8 - H 9 - N 10 - O

Most of those makes sense - its just matching the number to the nth letter of the alphabet. The few exceptions are 6,9, and 10. I chose S for 6 because 6 sounds very "s"-like and N for 9 because it sounds very "n"-ish. 10 is O because the zero looks like an O. For the second initial of the person, I take the suit name (Heart, Club, Diamond, Spade) and just take the front letter (H,C,D,S). Examples:

7 of Clubs = G.C. -> George Clooney 8 of Spades = H.S. -> Homer Simpson 5 of Clubs = E.C. -> Eric Clapton

**note: If a set of initials reminds you of something straight off the bat, go with that! For example, 2 of Clubs is B.C. - I instantly think of Jesus (BC = Before Christ). That's just me, but I stuck with that because it was easy. Or 2 of Diamonds is Kobe Bryant since his basketball jersey number is 24 (Diamonds is the letter D, which is also the number 4). Like I said before, it honestly doesn't matter how you derive your images, as long as it makes sense to you.**

Once you have a person representing each card, add the actions. The actions you want to choose should all be distinct from one another and should be actions that you can visualize easily. Dancing, eating, lifting weights, bouncing, playing soccer, playing tennis, playing the piano, are all good examples. But just remember that the action needs to relate to the person. Examples:

5 of Clubs = Eric Clapton / Playing the guitar 2 of Diamonds = Kobe Bryant / Dunking a basketball King of Hearts = Dad / Signing a check

Once you have all 52 cards represented (by each a different person and action), you are ready….almost!

Storing the cards in your memory

So now the cards have meaning. When you are about to memorize a deck, you need a place to store all the cards or "people." To do this, take a familiar place like your home or your work place and make a mental journey through it. While doing that, choose 26 different points of interest (POI). These POIs can be rooms or even pieces of furniture - doesn't matter - they just needs to be significant. Make the journey through the POIs make sense, don't jump around, make it go in a sensical order. For example, I use my home as a journey with these POI:

1. bedroom 2. bathroom 3. closet 4. hallway 5. brothers room 6. sister's room 7. tv room 8. kitchen etc…

The journey you come up with should be intuitive and you shouldn't need to memorize it. If you do, you're trying too hard - find something simpler or easier or more familiar to you. A good idea is to maybe work your way clockwise through the POIs. For example, in my home, I start in my bedroom and next I go to my bathroom because it is the closest room. I don't jump to the kitchen from my room because there are other rooms in between - I go in a logical order. Once you have the journey mapped out in your mind, make a mental run through before you use it for memorizing. Imagine yourself walking through it.

Ok, now you are ready. Shuffle your cards. When you begin memorizing, take the first two cards. What you want to do is take the first card and visualize the person associated with it doing the action of the second card. So you are combining two cards at a time. You want to visualize this person/action happening in the first room in your Journey (in my case, my bedroom). Let's see an example:

Say the 1st card is the King of Clubs and the 2nd card is the 7 of Clubs. King of clubs is Tiger Woods and the 7 of Clubs is George Clooney (but his action is driving the Bat-mobile). Since they came in that order, I take the first card as a person and the second as an action and combine them. Tiger Woods is driving the Bat-mobile in my bedroom. That is what I memorize. I visualize this happening in my room. Try to use as many senses (try to imagine sound, color, smell, etc. ) as possible to make the image more vivid. Once you have it, move on to the next two cards and the next POI. Don't look back. You'll be surprised how much your brain can remember! That is the beauty of this technique - no review is needed - you can just look at each card once. Keep working in pairs of cards until you reach the end of the deck. To recall the deck, just go back to the first POI and your first image should be waiting for you there! Then make your way around all the POIs and translate the images back to cards. I know it sounds crazy but it works.

Building up speed

At first, memorizing a full deck will be slow. It will seem like you are memorizing a lot and it might seem extremely mentally draining. That's alright, your brain has probably never done anything like this before. With practice, it will become normal and easy.

One thing to note, after using your journey for the first time, you will remember it for a while. You have to let it be forgotten (this might mean waiting a few days). What I do in the meantime, since I train everyday, is I have multiple journeys that I alternate between everyday while the other ones get "forgotten." There is nothing from stopping you from creating multiple journeys. I have more than 20 different ones!

You will find that if you practice one deck a day, your speed will improve everyday. All memorizing cards is is being able to translate cards to an image quickly and coming up with a vivid image in your head fast enough. If you find that you have lots of "holes" when you try to recall the deck, it's not because the technique doesn't work, it's because you didn't make a strong enough image.

This is the method I began with. There are other systems out there. Some of these systems claim to be faster, but honestly I think speed comes mostly with practice. Practice your system well and you will get fast. One thing I did do to increase my memorizing speed was to switch from person/action to person/action/object. What that means is not only does each card have a person and action associated with it, but also an object. Then, when I memorize, I group 3 cards at a time instead of 2. The first is the person, the second is the action, and the third is the object. It's kind of like the game "Clue," person X was doing action Y with object Z. Another advantage for grouping 3 cards instead of the original 2 is that you need less POI in your journey. For pairs of cards, you need 26 different POIs, but with triples you only need 17.

Anyways, that is it. Hope that helped! Email me at climbformemory@gmail.com if you have any questions or if anything was unclear.

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World Records in Memory & Climbing

This past week have been crazy...two world records on both interests of my blog, climbing and most importantly, memory! First, the controversial 13 year old Jordan Romero became the youngest person and American to summit Mt. Everest...incredible - you can check out more on his website (www.jordanromero.com). Overall, the season on Everest went smoothly. Over 500 summits (putting the total Everest summit count since the 1950s at over 5000), and only 4 deaths, which were all on the north side. So now the season is over and all that remains is a 10 month countdown for my climb. I am excited. Not only for the climb, but to raise awareness of my cause to a whole new level. The word about what I"m doing is spreading slowly but surely, and I have garnered a lot of interest in my memory techniques and training. All I want is for people"s desire to have my abilities (which are all trained, and anyone is capable!) and to keep their minds fit!

The second world record I want to discuss is Simon Reinhard"s amazing, and I literally mean A-MA-ZING, record of memorizing a deck of cards in 21.90 seconds. Before you read on, I want you to grab a deck of cards and time yourself thumbing through a deck of cards. Try to do it in 20 seconds...I bet you, you can"t even do it. You have to understand that memorizing a stack of 52 pieces of information (its more like 104 pieces since each card has a number and suit), in 20 seconds. This record is scary, and just shows what the mind and memory is capable of. It was only years ago that scientists thought it to be impossible for people to memorize cards in under a minute. Now 20 seconds?? Very soon, it will be less than 20 seconds....This record should encourage ANYONE and EVERYONE to train their memory...seriously.

Ok, next topic...the future of this site. I"ve been very busy finishing up school lately, but I finally have a lot of time. So this week, the memory tips begin. I will start tomorrow be explaining how to memorize a deck of cards. I know it seems like a memory trick for show, but its actually a fantastic exercise for the brain. Check it out tomorrow!

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Everest summits, future plans, memory competitions, and the Miami Heat

Yo, Awesome things are happening. Such as this:

Ya, so Peak Freaks just put 3 more members of their team on the summit of Mt. Everest. The more I read about the team's success and the more I see photos like these, the more I get antsy for my trip next year! ARGHHH! I can't imagine what it will be like to reach the summit. And I definitely can't imagine what the hell you would do with your life after that?? There's a funny comedy bit done by Rhys Darby where he talks about how Buzz Aldrin leads a mundane life, scanning groceries, after he's been to the moon and how nothing lives up to being on the moon. People go to him, "Buzz, would you like some coffee?" "No thanks, I've been to the moon." "Hey Buzz, wanna come out with us tonight?" "Naw, I've been to the moon." Haha...watch it here: Buzz Aldrin. ANYWAYS, the Peak Freaks team is doing great out there and they will have another summit push next week for the remainder of the team.

As for my future plans, my Bolivia climb is coming to fruition. I'll be climbing in the Bolivian Andes mid July (more info on that later) and depending on jobs and such, there could be some local south florida memory competition action amongst high schools. Pretty exciting stuff, if I can get that going. How cool would it be if a number of Miami schools had memory teams and were learning how to memorize like crazy? For one, it would help out that damn FCAT problem.

Finally, the Miami Heat. I have this horrible feeling they aren't gonna be able to sign D-Wade again. That's all. Hopefully I'm wrong. The worst part is that I'm gonna be climbing while all the free agency stuff is going on. When I come back, everything is gonna be all changed in the NBA. That's what happened last year. I was on Mt. McKinley for 3 weeks and when I came back Michael Jackson had died and Shaq had been sent to the Cavs. Well I guess Michael Jackson isn't part of the NBA, but still.

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Cambridge results

I came in 2nd! Check out the results below! Next up, the World Memory Championships! One thing to note: I set a US record for speed cards - I memorized a deck of cards in 60 seconds :D

A B C D E F G H I J K L M
1 Cambridge Memory Championships 2010 Final Results
2
3 Position Name 5-min words 5-min binary 5-min names 15-min number 10-min cards Speed Number Images Historic Dates Spoken Number Speed Cards Overall Points
4 1 Christian Schäfer 460 693 420 816 330 587 1040 891 443 380 6060
5 2 Nelson Dellis 460 300 400 450 234 149 412 319 210 493 3427
6 3 James Ponder 290 390 390 400 312 219 600 286 437 0 3324
7 4 John Burrows 350 casino online font-size: x-small;">198 350 350 312 213 320 187 343 293 2916
8 5 Mattias Ribbing 480 225 430 400 186 320 316 110 357 88 2912
9 6 David Billington 300 211 350 230 0 299 376 209 350 12 2336
10 7 Idriz Zogaj 300 210 170 250 120 69 304 209 280 83 1995
11 8 Oliver Strand 80 45 130 35 159 80 140 66 171 38 945
12 9 Mark Nissen 0 210 0 393 0 0 0 0 289 0 891
13 10 Roy Lam 0 38 220 25 0 107 156 88 171 6 811
14 11 Nicolai Lassen 0 22 0 50 165 0 0 0 0 0 237

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2010 Cambridge Memory Championship

Cheerio from Suffolk, England! I spent 80% of today watching Rugby and Snooker on Sky Sports, haha. I now sortof understand the rules. Sortof. Anywho, tomorrow is the annual Cambridge Memory Championship. Its a small competition, usually only 10-15 competitors, but fun and kindof a gateway into the more serious competitions. I've only competed in American competitions and the differences between them and the rest of the world's competitions are huge! Here is what the world competitions offer:

1. You get ranked world-wide afterwards.

2. There are 10 main events (as opposed to only 4).

3. The winner is crowned based on their overall score throughout 10 events (rather than surviving elimination rounds)

So, this is my chance to get ranked and maybe win a competition. I also have the chance to be the highest ranked American ever. Wish me luck :D. For now, let me give a quick run down on all 10 events for the wondering (i'll also include the world record for some perspective)

5 Minute Words - given a list of random words, you get 5 minutes to remember as many as you can in order. The world record is 109 words. I'm aiming for 60-70.

5 Minute Binary Numbers - given a huge binary number (aka a number made from 1's and 0's only), you get 5 minutes to memorize as many digits as you can. The world record is 930 digits (amazing). I'm going for 450-500.

5 Minute Names and Faces - given a sheet with pictures of random people with random names, you get 5 minutes to recall as many first and last names as possible. The world record is 94 points (1 point is awarded for each first or last name). I'm aiming for 50).

15 Minute Numbers - this is known as a "marathon event" since it is longer. You are given a huge number and given 15 minutes to memorize as much of it as possible. The world record is 819 digits (insane). I'm aiming for 450-500. This event can kill your brain. It's exhausting.

10 Minute Cards - also a "marathon event." You get 10 minutes to memorize the order of as many shuffled decks of playing cards as possible. The world record is 7 decks. I am aiming for 3. I'd go for 4 but chances for mistakes are higher, we'll see how i feel.

Speed Numbers - given a huge number, you are given 5 minutes to memorize as much of it as you can. This will be fun. I do pretty well at this and I hold the US record in it. The world record is 405 digits though (wow). I'm aiming to go over 200.

Abstract Images - given sheets of papers with rows of abstract "blob" like pictures (5 per row), you get 15 minutes to memorize the order of each row. Some people hate this event, others can kill it. Takes a good amount of practice. The world record is 319 points (1 point is awarded for each "blob" put in its correct place). This will be a crapshot for me. Practiced a couple times, so we'll see. 100 points would be nice.

Historic Dates - this event is probably the funnest. It's deceptively hard though to get a really high score! Given a year between 1000-2099 and a specific random (and made up) event (ie. 1256 -the pope eats a slice of pizza), you have 5 minutes to memorize as many years as you can. The record is a whopping 118 dates, I'm hoping to break 30. haha.

Spoken Numbers - this is a crazy event. Instead of reading numbers and memorizing them on paper, you are recited numbers aloud: 1 PER SECOND! There are 2 trials of this. One is 100 seconds long (thats a hundred recited digits) and the second is 200 seconds long (two hundred recited digits). The world record is 202 (at other competitions sometimes there is a 3rd trial with 300 digits). I am excited to do well here. I can do 100 digits pretty solidly. If i slam that on my first trial, I will aim for 140-150 on the second try :D.

Speed Cards - probably the coolest event of them all. Memorize the order of a shuffled deck of cards as fast as possible. I train this one every day, so hopefully I will break 60 seconds. The world record is 25 seconds.

Anyways, thats the rundown. If I get anywhere near the scores I anticipate, I should place pretty well. We shall see. I have never attempted so much memorizing in 9 straight hours so we'll see how fast my brain turns to mush. I will say that I AM used to long sessions of using my brain (doing a set of quantum mechanics physics homework is an example LOL).

I will post scores as soon as I can after the competition! Thanks for all your best wishes!

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Off to the UK

Sorry, I've been bad at writing blog entries. I'm not sure if I'm just bad at keeping up with it or if I'm just to busy as of late. I would go with the second haha. Lots of job interviews and training....but ok - I'm off to Cambridge this weekend for the Cambridge Memory Competition! I will be posting as much as I can when I have internet connection, so stay posted. I'm trying to get world ranked and have the highest ranked memory in AMERICA! Yes! Gotta get some sleep now, but tomorrow I will go through all the events and what each requires in terms of memory skill. Exciting stuff! On a side note, Peak Freaks Everest expedition is going great still, most people are at Camp 2 and about to climb up to Camp 3 (24,300 ft). The team gets closer and closer to summit push day. I will keep you posted. Most of the team is still intact but a couple people had to turn back because of stomach viruses or from not being able to acclimatize (which can happen to anyone : / ).

Anyways, stay tuned! Exciting times :D

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Booked my flight to London!

Wooo, I'm going to London! For those of you that don't know, I was actually born there. I haven't been there  about 3 years though, so it'll be exciting to go back (that is, unless I get trapped in a cloud of volcanic ash while I'm there). Aside from being excited for the Cambridge Memory Championship, I'm excited to get my hands on some salt and vinegar chips crisps and some Cadbury Minstrels (anyone who knows what those are is awesome automatically). Ok, enough small talk...my training has been going awesome. Ever since the US competition I have been working on new systems to improve my scores, but I actually have been getting better by just practicing my old systems. Weird. This always seems to happen though. I always tell myself that I'm gonna change my system to a faster one and then my old systems get faster, so I'm like, forget it. I never thought my current system for memorizing a deck of cards would break a minute, but Ive been averaging 55 seconds in the past few weeks. Same with numbers, I did 240 digits just the other day. If I can perform like that, I will be ranked really well :D. Yes, after this competition I get world ranked. I'm hoping for at worst, top 50. We will see. On the Everest front, the expedition group I will be a part of next year (Peak Freaks) has just acclimatized at camp 1 (20015 ft.). Pretty exciting stuff! To get to camp 1, climbers have to cross the most dangerous part of Mt. Everest, the Khumbu Icefall. So may crevasses and so many avalanches happen here, it is THE most dangerous place on the mountain - which is weird to think, because its basically near the bottom. Anyways, the team that is currently there has been passing through it with no problems. This is what it's like:

Man, when I see this kinda thing, I get so excited for next year! In the mean time though, my fundraising has been going really well. I will also be doing a climb in Bolivia this July climbing over 21,000 ft!

Stay tuned!

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VIDEOS finally!

Here are a couple of videos from my television appearances. Pretty cool! There are a couple more, but I don't have those uploaded yet...stay tuned!

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World Memory Championships 20 weeks away

Good morning folks... Just wanted to let you guys all know that in 20 weeks, i'll be in China, memorizing thousands of numbers, among other things. In 20 weeks (that's the end of August), I'll be hitting up Hong Kong for the most anticipated World Memory Championship (WMC) ever. It's gonna be huge...the prize money is the largest it's ever been, which means world records are going to be broken. Even I, who's never competed on such a big stage before, am planning to break a couple world records. We will see...holy crap it's gonna be exciting! When it gets closer to the event, I'll be breaking down all of the different disciplines and what they involve.

On the climbing front...Everest season has just started and people are piling into base camp. The weather's been so-so and apparently there is a ton of smog on the way up to base camp (which has never happened before and shows how the pollution of Katmandu is climbing up into the mountains - not cool). Either way, the expedition group I'm climbing with next year has been updating facebook like crazy which is great for family and friends...nice. As for this summer, I'm still figuring out what climb I want to do, but it's looking like the Andes - probably Bolivia. There are some wicked 21,000 foot peaks there...I'll keep you posted.

Those memory tips are coming...not to worry. And follow me on twitter, I'm gonna try and be hip and keep that going with updates on my memory training scores and such.

Cheers.

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Article in the UM newspaper

Good morning folks,
my school decided to write an article on me (if anything check out the picture they took...its pretty darn cool and creative haha) about the competition and my climb:

Miami Hurricane Article

On a side note, for those of you who don"t know, I will be competing in the Cambridge Memory Championship this May. Why is that exciting? Well, it"s a smaller competition, I have somewhat of a chance of winning it if I online casino dgfev perform well, and best of all, I get world ranked at the end of it. Since the US competition is constructed differently than any other international competition, it doesn"t allow competitors to be ranked. Lame-o. I also get to go to England! Haven"t been there in years.

More information on the competition later. Coming up, the as-promised memory tips :)

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