Updates Feb.

Just wanted to check in with some updates about everything. Everest is coming up pretty quickly. I leave in just over a month. All my gear is in order. Still trying to work out the kinks for my means of communication. Will most likely have a sat phone so I'll be able to provide some tweet updates while I'm there. A blog will be updated pretty often from the web site of the expedition outfitter I'll be going with peak freaks.

Ok, and the memory competition. Coming up, 3 weeks from today. Can't believe it was a year ago already since the last one. Time goes by fast. It's going to be a good one. If you are in the Manhattan area, I highly suggest you go watch. It's from 8:30am-4:00pm (the afternoon part is more exciting for viewers) at the ConEdison building near Union Square.

Training for both Everest and the memory competition has been exhausting and draining at times. But I see the light at the end of the tunnel. I've never been so disciplined in my life and I'm very happy with the results of seen from the training. Hopefully both will provide Climb For Memory with the attention it has been seeking for a long time. More people need to know about how I, as well as many other memory athletes, have been able to improve their memory through training.

I'm out.

PA Memory Competition

So, quick update, but the Pennsylvania Memory Competition was held this past Saturday and a few new USA memory records wore broken. I haven't seen the final results, but I've been told that 3 people (and by people, I mean high school students because this was a high school competition) broke the poetry memorization record from a few years ago. Sophia Hu broke the Random Words event record by memorizing 120 random words in 15 minutes. Nice! This record has been sitting around since 2003 by Scott Hagwood. It was well overdue to be beaten... Now starts the one month countdown to the 2011 USA Memory Competition on March 12th. It's going to be insane. The culmination of a nearly 2 straight years of non-stop training for me and a demonstration by some highly trained memory athletes of the nearly limitless possibilities of the mind. Also the competition will be coinciding with the release of Joshua Foer's soon-to-be popular memory book "Moonwalking With Einstein."

Stay tuned. In the next few weeks, I'll be going over the events that will be at the competition. If you are in New York City on March 12th, you better make it out to the competition. It's amazing to watch!

Let's talk a little Everest physiology...

So, a lot of people are always surprised at the crap my body goes through during a mountaineering expedition. I remember when I had just come back from Mt. McKinley and I went to the doctor for a checkup. They made me fill out a few sheets, like this one:

I remember the doctors face when he saw that I had checked nearly everything on that sheet.

On Everest, it's even worse, for two reasons: higher elevation and more time spent at high elevation. So what does the higher elevation do? Well, simple. Most of you guys have probably been to a place that was higher in elevation (like Denver, say) and were probably really out of breath after going up a short flight of stairs. The basic reason people have a harder time breathing at higher elevation is because there is less air pressure, thus the air molecules are spread out a bit more (less air in a given volume compared to sea level). That makes it harder for our bodies to get the oxygen it needs in the same breaths we are used to taking at sea level. So, we breathe harder and more frequently to compensate.

Because at 17,000 ft (base camp of Everest) you are already at a very high altitude and because you end up "living" there for +6 weeks, your body has to do something to deal with its constant struggle for air. So, because the red blood cells in your body are what carry the oxygen around your body, these are what your body starts producing more of so that it can carry more oxygen. It's a pretty remarkable process. This is the reason why some athletes train at high altitudes. Because when they come back to sea level, they may have twice as many red blood cells giving their body oxygen, which allows their body to function much better then regular folks. Imagine sprinting and getting out of breath vs. sprinting at sea level after being at altitude for a long time. It's going to take more to get you out of breath.

One issue with your body producing more red blood cells is that it makes your blood thicker and more syrup-ier. This is bad because this means blood flow can be slow (i.e. slow circulation). When its freaking freezing on Everest, the last thing you want is poor circulation. You're blood will freeze quicker, and you'll be prone to frostbite/frostnip quicker. To deal with this issue, mountaineers are always drinking water. Tons and tons of it. Probably around 3-6 liters a day. This helps keep the fluid in your body going, and keeps your circulation flowing to the farthest extremities of your body.

Oxygen deprivation is probably the primary concern of anyone on Everest, followed by frostbite. There are obviously tons of other hazards on Everest, but there are two other big ones I should mention. One is snowblindness. This happens at high elevation where ultraviolet radiation is high (not to mention, places with snow worsen this because the snow effectively works as a mirror for radiation). It's basically having a sunburn on your cornea. Ouch. This is easily prevented by wearing UV protecting goggles/glasses. On an expedition, 90% of the time, you are wearing sunglasses. But take your glasses off for too long while climbing and your eyes will start to scratch and it will feel like you have sand in your eyes. If it gets worse, you can experience temporary blindness. Not good when your are trying to climb down a mountain....

Another tough physiological problem climbers deal with is energy consumption. Basically, how to keep your body filled with the fuel it needs to be active at high altitude. I'm expecting to lose a good 20lbs over the course of the expedition (I'm a lean guy, so that's saying a lot). On a high altitude climb where you're climbing steep terrain for many hours at a time, with heavy gear, all while your lungs are working overtime to get the air it needs, researchers have said that climbers can expend up to 6000 calories a day. THAT IS INSANE. The recommended intake of calories for men is 2000-3000. So obviously, feeding yourself is a huge deal on Everest. On an expedition, it really doesn't matter how well you eat, but rather how many calories you are shoving in your mouth. The more the merrier. This means I need to bring lots of small high calorie foods, like CANDY BARS! Basically anything with high caloric value.

What it comes down to is drinking water and eating right. Pump yourself with both of these and you are bound for positive results and hopefully a fully ready body that will take you up the mountain. Also, gaining a bit of chub before heading out on an expedition is highly recommended. As I finish this donut in my hands, I will gladly say that this is an awesome recommendation, haha.

Go Pro Cameras!

GoPro Cameras has graciously donated a bunch of free cameras and accessories for me to use on my expedition. If you haven't seen their awesome commercials, go here. Basically, these guys make helmet cameras with HD quality and wide angle viewing. In other words, cameras that are super ideal for extreme sports, like CLIMBING!

I've been outfitted with 3 full HD cameras, all sorts of different mounting devices: to attach it to my helmet, my wrist, chest, ice axe, etc, and a bunch of memory cards to store it all on. It will be absolutely amazing to get the summit of Everest in HD.

Everest Climb Overview - Part 1

So it is exactly two months before I leave for Mt. Everest and I figured I should try to describe, to the best of my abilities, what my trip will be like. So over the next few weeks I will be discussing my itinerary, the gear I'll be using, the challenges, etc. I'll start with March 26th when I leave, arriving in Kathmandu, up until I reach Everest Base Camp.

A lot of people don't know this, but when climbing Everest from the south side (in Nepal), it involves a long trek to get into base camp. So you're essentially hiking for a good 8-10 days in backcountry and through small Nepalese villages before you even encounter some snow, and then of course, Everest Base Camp.

I'll be flying to Kathmandu leaving from Miami, FL on the 26th of March. I go: Miami, FL -> Raleigh, NC -> London, UK -> New Delhi, India -> Kathmandu, Nepal....with a whopping total travel time of around 36 hours. Yuck. It's gonna be loads of fun. I'm sure I'll be wishing I never chose to do this thing by then, haha.

So I'll get to Kathmandu on March 28th, where I'll be met by the others who are apart of the same expedition me. I'll be joining an expedition group run by Peak Freaks, a Canadian based expedition outfitter. They are awesome. Tim Rippel, the head honcho, is a climbing legend and has gained a pretty wicked reputation because of a daring rescue he did above the death zone in 2008. Simply put, he is bad ass. You can read about the rescue here. There are 11 climbers, 3 main "western" guides, and a team of 26 sherpas. SIDE NOTE: I'm excited to memorize all their names :D

Anyways, once the whole team (the 11 of us) has arrived, on April 1st we fly from Kathmandu to Lukla, where one of the world's most dangerous airports lies hanging off the edge of a mountain in the Khumbu Valley. I've been told that when you fly in for the landing it seems as though you are going to crash straight into the side of the mountain. The runway is actually uphill to slow down the plane once it lands. Great. It's supposed to be even crazier when you fly out; just speeding straight off the edge of the cliff. James Bond style.

Our first retreat for the night is in a small nearby village called Monjo, which sits at an elevation of about 9,000 ft. The next day we trek onto one of the larger villages in the valley, Namche Bazaar (at an elevation of 11,200 ft). Surprisingly, it has some pretty modern amenities for where its located: restaurants, internet cafes, and places to buy food and gear. It's technically one of the last places I'll find some signs of modern civilization before getting to base camp.

Next up, we make the trek onwards to the village of Tengboche (12,600 ft). Along this trek is when we start to see great views of the massive peaks of the Khumbu Valley: Everest (duh!), Lhotse (4th highest in the world), Nuptse (a 7000m high peak), and Ama Dablam (a peak that looks like its straight out of a Tim Burton movie). Spend a night there, then the next day move up to the village of Dingboche (14,800 ft). Keep in mind that the highest peak in the continental US is Mt. Whitney at about 14,500 ft. That should give you an idea of how high these villages are in the Khumbu Valley. It's around this point in the trek where altitude sickness can really start to disabilitate some of the team. Some will be fine, some will need to slow it down a bit, and some might even be sick already. It's all about how you acclimatize. Slow and steady is usually the name of the game. The next few days, we'll take a couple nights sleeping at the same elevation, just to keep our bodies in check.

We trek up a little higher the next day to acclimatize some more but then come back down to sleep in Dingboche. The day after that, we hike up to a collection of lodges called Lobuche. Which, if I'm correct, is near the peak called Lobuche (a 20,000 ft peak?). To acclimatize some more, the next day we will hike up Kala Pattar, an 18,000 ft peak that is basically another exercise in acclimatizing our bodies.

One more night in Lobuche. Then finally, we trek up to Everest Base Camp (17,500 ft). My home for the following 2 months. A village of tents. From what I've heard, Peak Freaks sets up their camp the closest to the Khumbu Ice Fall (more on this obstacle next time), which is cool, because we get to see everyone as they pass by before they climb. There is gonna be a ton of climbers at Base Camp, but I'm excited for a pair of climbers that will be climbing with the famed HimEx (they are the cool guys on that Discovery Channel show, Beyond The Limit): Steve and Sarah. They are Welsh, so they have pretty sweet accents. I climbed with them on Mont Blanc last summer, and they are raising money for UNICEF....check them out here. SIDE NOTE: From what I've heard, Discovery Channel is not filming this year (bummer)...I was hoping I'd make a small cameo.

Stay tuned! The Khumbu Ice Fall is next....

500 Decks of Cards!

So today I just realized that I had successfully (and by successfully, I mean counting all the attempts where I never made a mistake) memorized my 500th deck of cards under 1m30s. I remember in November 2009 I had hit the 1m30s mark for the first time and at the time, it was a huge deal for me. Ronnie White's USA record of memorizing cards was 1m27s (and still is), so I was ecstatic to be even close to his score. Just over a year later, and I have hit that mark or beaten that mark, with no mistakes, 500 times. That's 26,000 cards memorized correctly over the past year! What amazes me the most is that I've been at this for so long now without letting up. I've trained for a lot of things in my life, but there has been nothing other than memory training, that I have trained for this long or this hard.

The USA Memory Championship is coming up in less than 2 months, and although I know the competition will be extremely tough this year, I do know that I have out-trained anyone that will be there. I know there are competitors that have trained hard this time around, but trust me, not like me. I can honestly say that, with out a doubt. Try running a 7 minute mile while memorizing a 300 digit number, then we'll talk ;)

That still doesn't guarantee me to win, but it does guarantee me that I will be competiting to the best of my abilities. If that isn't enough, then so be it. Last year I thought I had it in the bag, and I lost. I thought at that point in time that I had maxed out my memory capabilities. But I lost, and I had to figure out how to make myself better even though I thought I couldn't improve any more. A year later, and after many ups and downs and failed ideas, I have improved every facet of my memory.

So here I am again, hoping to be the best, hoping to be the champion. Will it happen? I don't know. I am confident and well-prepared for every single event at the competition this year, while last year I winged a few and did okay. Will that be the difference? Who knows. Nothing is certain, except for what I do know: that I put as much effort into my training as I could have. If I have one advantage over any of my opponents, it's that I have practiced each event more than anyone...and that has to count for something.

I'll see you at the top!

The importance of review.

This post sounds exciting right? Yeah, well its not. Reviewing sucks. Whether it be for an exam or your scales, review is an essential part of retaining information whether we like it or not.

Obviously the more I try and memorize, the more the first things I started memorizing tend to fade. This is a common thing we humans deal with on a day to day basis. On average, the human can hold about 7 things in the short term memory, and the more recent something is, the fresher it is in your memory. To actually transfer information to the long term memory, one needs to review and repeat the information.

What about speed memorizing? So when I first started getting good at memorizing numbers in 5 minutes, I would go through about 180-200 digits with only looking at them once. I used to think that that was the crowning achievement of memory techniques, that with one look, you had it in your brain! I still believe this, but, as I tried to gain speed and more digits, I found that it became easier for my brain to forget the earlier digits. So then, after competing in the Cambridge Memory Championship earlier this year, the amazing Christian Schaeffer told me his technique. He flies through the numbers for the first 3 minutes, not really memorizing them (more like just watching a movie in fast forward), and then goes back and speed reviews again before the time is up. He seemed to do that for every discipline, whether it be names and faces, numbers, or random words.

I then found out that the #2 guy in the world in memory, Johannes Mallow, does the same thing. And he can nearly memorize 500 digits in 5 minutes! So I had to try it. I've been doing it for about 6 months now and the results are amazing. And whats crazy about it is that it never really feels like I'm memorizing or that the information is sticking. But somehow, it's always there when I go back for it! Amazing!

The point is that the memory techniques I preach are undeniably successful, but review, as an additional weapon, will make information stay in the brain and even allow you to cram more information in your brain as well. I almost never want to keep the numbers and other information I memorize in my brain, so I never consistently review them after I'm done. I force myself to forget. But, if I wanted to keep something in there, I could; no problem. It would just involve reviewing on a consistent basis (every day, then taper to every week, then to every month, etc), until it eventually moved over to long term.

Two-thousand-eleven.

I apologize for the late acknowledgement of the new year. This is by far one of the most important years of my life, and believe me, I am ready for it. The two main things happening this year are the 2011 USA Memory Competition in early March and then, of course, my climb of Mt. Everest in late March. My goals are to win the memory competition and to summit the mountain. Both goals I feel extremely capable of. There are obviously things I can't predict and ANYTHING can happen, so those two goals aren't given. Far from it. All I can do is keeping working hard, like I have been for the past year, and know that I have prepared the best that I could. The rest will just happen, and hopefully with good results.

Hopefully with those two goals accomplished, my Climb For Memory charity will be bringing in a lot more attention and hopefully bringing Alzheimer's awareness to greater significance.

So, as this year gets underway expect more and more blogs about my preparations for Mt. Everest and as always, more memory techniques and ways to keep your mind healthy and prepared to potentially thwart the onset of Alzheimer's.

Happy New Year!

Blueberries rock my brain.

I know its 2011 and all, and I should be writing some inspirational blog-post for the cool things I wanna do this year (I will, don't worry), but for now I want to quickly talk about blueberries.

Everybody knows about blueberries. Most people know them as a "superfood." "Super", in the sense that they are really good for your brain. I'm actually eating some right now as I write this. Actually, eating blueberries is something I do daily. It is part of my diet so my memory is always at its peak.

There has been a bunch of research done on blueberries, and it turns out that they have compounds in them that boost neuron signals, which in turn help with memory and cognition. Eating blueberries and maintaining a diet rich in fruits and veggies with deep pigments can keep your brain machinery sharp and boosts the potency of your neuron signals. The antioxidants in blueberries stimulate the flow of blood and oxygen to the brain, keeping your mind fresh.

Eating healthy is a very important aspect of maintaining brain health. So do it. Then go memorize a pack of cards :D

The Best Journeys...

So, I'm excited because in about a week, I will be taking a New Year's vacation to the Bahamas for a nice wee bit of relaxation. What's doubly awesome about this trip is that this one small Cay in the Exumas, where we are going, is one of my favorite mental journey's. It is actually the exact journey I used to set the USA record for speed numbers last March. I plan on using it again next March to raise the record even further. It's always intrigued me as to why this particular journey has always been my favorite and the one that usually comes out flawless. What I mean by favorite, is that when I use it to memorize something, I get a sense of comfort and smoothness as I go through the anchor points of my journey. It feels the most comfortable. There are other journeys (like the one that goes around the University of Miami) which I sometimes struggle with and they kind of feel like I'm wading through sludge as I move from one anchor point to the next. It's all mental of course, and it isn't that I don't know one journey better than the other, it's just that certain ones have a better feel than others. I guess you can compare it to wearing you're comfy worn-in shoes over your stiff new leather boots (although that's a bad analogy because I've used all my journey's the same amount, so none is more "worn" than the other).

The point is, is the mind is weird. I've created these mental getaways for myself which I use for memorizing and they each have their own feel to them. I've always believed that sunlight is something that makes me memorize better. When I sit by a window and the sun hits just right, I feel like I can memorize anything and go at any speed....and I do. When it's night time or cloudy, I always have a bit harder of a time successfully memorizing things. Same with my journey's, they inherently have a preset weather condition and time of day (I guess depending on how I remembered the place when I first constructed the journey). The University of Miami journey is kinda neutral, later in the day, kinda cloudy. The journey from my old pizza delivery job is set just before night time but is mostly indoors, so lighting is different throughout. And then there is the Bahamas, which has this bright sun over head at every anchor point. I guess the fact that it is a relaxing place with a lot of sunlight, makes it a relaxing journey for me to use when I memorize. Since stress is known to inhibit memory, maybe that's why it feels better. Interesting.

Anyways, I love the journeys I have. For some, it is an escape. For others, it is a way to, in a sense, time travel back to the times that I miss. And for others it is a way to preserve the places I've lived and been to (for example, a new journey I created a month ago is the house I lived in in the early 90s, in Paris. I actually had forgotten most of the house. But after watching some recently found home videos of the place, I was able to reconstruct it in my head and now it is imprinted there forever, BECAUSE of this mental journey I've stored. Pretty cool, I think). That's the great thing about the journey method. Not only is it an extremely powerful memory technique, it can be a fun place to visit when you are alone with your thoughts. It's a great way to relax, and I often float through these journey's when I'm bored or am about to go to sleep.

On that note, Happy Holidays everyone!

Super Autobiographical Memory

60 Minutes had an amazing story last night about a rare skill that few people have where they can remember everything and anything from their past. Definitely worth the watch: Watch it here!

Makes you wonder about the memory. I mean, I have a really good trained memory, but an absolute wreck of an autobiographical memory. I can barely remember what I did on my birthday last year, let alone the reason why I opened the fridge haha. No but seriously, these people that have this skill don't even try. If I could ever do it, it would be because I created some method of storing facts and dates. But storing all facts from a long lifetime of facts is daunting if you plan on attempting it methodically. Seems nearly impossible, even from my point of view.

Makes me feel that the stuff I purposefully memorize (numbers, cards, absolutely unimportant stuff) is kind of a waste of time, haha. Memorizing events in one's life seems like the correct usage of the brain's memory, right? And, an actually important usage at that!

Anyways, have a watch. It'll blow your mind! Maybe you have the same skill!!

Cheers.

Olfactory Imagery & Memorization

Close your eyes for a second and try to visualize a pizza. Pretty easy right? Now, forget what the pizza looks like, try and imagine the smell of the pizza. Errr....not so easy.....

It's actually a lot easier to "see" something in your mind than "smell" it. But what does that even mean, to "see" or "smell" in your mind. When you think about how you visualize things, it seems that the majority of the image that is created in your mind is an actual picture and nothing more. You can see the object before you, almost as if it is just floating there, before you, for you to look at as long as you like. The colors are there, it might be moving, or some other object may be interacting with it, but "smell" isn"t usually part of that initial image. It"s actually a little bit more of a challenge to conjure up the imagination of the "smell" of an image. Sure, if I asked you to imagine the "smell" of cigarette smoke (or something very pugnant), for example, you might say "yes, I can imagine that no problem." But compare that imagined smell to the true experience of smelling cigarette smoke, and then compare that to how a real image of a pizza differs in sensation from an imagined one. The "real image" to "imagined image" experiences are very close to each other, but "real smell" and "imagined smell" experiences seem to be further apart. If you scored real experiences as a 10 (10 being "very real"), I"d say an image in the mind of an object would score a 7 or so in terms of realness. While the imagined smell of an object, I"d probably rate a 4 or 3. Imagined smells just don"t feel very real. Why is that?

Now, there are people who experience synesthesia with smells. For example, hearing certain words, it can conjure up a smell that they believe to be real. But that"s obviously rare. I think that humans in general aren"t that great at imagining smells. Is that because our memory of smells aren"t that great? But how can that be? Remember the time you got a whiff of something and it took you back to a time when you were like three years old? That happened to me recently as I came across a lotion at a store. I took a smell of it just out of curiosity and it smelled exactly like the balm that was given to me after I got my tattoo in New Zealand 6 years ago. Not only did I surprise myself that I was able to pinpoint the exact smell in an instant, I was also taken back 6 years and a plethora of memories of that time were unleashed. Some that I hadn"t even thought about for ages. It was almost like this smell had a whole slew of memories locked in my brain, attached to it. We"ve all experienced things like this. So it can"t be that our memory of smell is bad, because we can have extremely intense memories attached to certain smells....but try this: go to the bathroom and wash your hands with soap. Smell the soap. Now wait 30 minutes and try and imagine the smell. It will be next to impossible. You may be able to describe how it smelt, but with very general words (floral, sweet, soapy)...bottom line, its not easy. Memory of smell is a very strange arena.

But, then you have Perfumers (people who are trained in the art of scent and who design and create perfumes). Perfumers are sometimes called "Noses" as they are basically capable (after a lot of training in perfumery schools) of smelling a unique perfume scent and breaking it down into all of its components. They can imagine a scent, much like an artist can visualize what he intends to paint, and then create it. Their memory of smell and their imagery for smell are an attained skill.

So, is smell memorization and imagery trainable? Apparently so. What"s more, there is even a memory athlete (Taras Bulgya - I think he"s from Romania?) who memorizes entirely by scent. WHAAAA? Sounds crazy right? To look at a set of numbers and get a hint of some scent, is insane. But, he does it, and it works. He"s told me that it"s all trained. Unfortunately, his scores aren"t very impressive, but the fact that he has trained his olfactory imagery to a point where he can create olfactory imagery in his mind, is astonishing. I"m not saying that I"ll be adding a technique like that anytime soon to my repertoire, but it"s definitely interesting to think about.

I"m also curious as to what my readers think about their own olfactory imagery. How easy/difficult is it for you to imagine smells?

World Memory Championships 2010

So, Wang Feng is the new world champ. That's pretty awesome. What's more awesome is the fact that he utterly destroyed the world records for memorizing numbers. For those of you unaware, I hold the US record (which doesn't even compare to the world record, mind you), and I've been training really hard over the past year to try and bring the US record closer to the international record, but Wang Feng just made it that much harder! He memorized 480 digits in 5 minutes and 2280 digits in 60 minutes. Absolutely unbelievable. I mean, when Johannes Mallow broke the record a couple years ago with 405 digits, it seemed amazing that anyone could memorize over 400 digits. Now, it seems that 500 digits is well in sight and will no doubt be reached in the next few years. I always say this, but its just incredible to me what the brain can do and how the expectations of what the brain can do, keep going up. The championship was held in China this year and was a huge success (apparently 1.5 billion people in China watched the coverage of the event on live TV, even though their population is about 1.3 billion lol). Either way, there were a crazy amount of Chinese competitors and no doubt that after a Chinese guy took the event by storm, that next year there will be three times as many Chinese competing and a bunch more media attention. Maybe the whole world will watch this time.

Sadly, the US competition struggles yearly to get the media attention it really needs and deserves. Every year I feel like the competition is just on the verge of exploding into this nationwide frenzy, but it never happens. It's a mystery to me why it doesn't. If only the techniques that memory athletes use were taught to kids across the country, maybe American's wouldn't be so dumb compared to the world (it's true, look: USA Education Rankings). Anyways, there is the hope in my mind that this year is the year....I also feel that Josh Foer's new book "Moonwalking with Einstein" which comes out next March, will be a hit and people will get interested in our US competition. If they make a movie about it, (as the myth goes Joshua supposedly sold his book's story to Paramount for a million dollars or something) then no doubt it will make the event huge.

So, fingers crossed.

In the mean-time, get excited: USA Memory Championship

Airplane travel BAD for memory

So, if you remember about a month ago I was complaining about a memory slump. I mentioned in that post that I thought that maybe it had to do with airplane travel (altitude/pressure chance) and decrease in amount of sleep (when I fly back to Boston from Miami, I always catch a flight that requires me to wake up at 4 or 5am). As usual though, my scores went back to normal a few days later and I even set a new personal best for memorization of cards last month. BUT I'm in a slump again, and low and behold, I just returned from Miami on the same flight. So, I've convinced myself that airports and air travel screw up your memory a bit. That being said, I will NOT be flying to the USA Memory Competition early in the morning. Ha.

short term cutting

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!

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 ;)

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.

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.

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!

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!