Reading Ben Pridmore's Blog Is Worth At Least $1000

I've been reading Ben Pridmore's blog for two years probably now, and I just wanted to make a shout out to him and his fun semi-memory-related blog: Zoomy's Thing . If you don't know who is, shame on you! He is the three-time World Memory Champion and he has memory systems named after him and stuff. Pretty impressive. Anyways, we just got news today that the WMC (World Memory Championship) was moved from Beijing to where it was held last year, in Guangzhou....unexpectedly. The competition is in 9 weeks and I'm sure some people already bought their ticket to Beijing. So that is bad news. Not cool.

Luckily, I didn't buy my ticket yet all because of Ben's blog. He has this golden rule of never buying a plane ticket to the WMC's far in advance because it always changes locations at the last minute. It wouldn't be surprising if they even changed it again to London a few weeks before or something. I think they've done that before, haha. Anyways, just wanted to thank Ben. Because I read his blog and listened to his sound advice, I didn't lose $1000 on a flight to somewhere I wasn't supposed to go. Woohoo!

Breaking Habits

Just got back from 2 weeks of non-stop travel for work-related stuff. So exhausted. My training has been continuing as usual, but this week and the upcoming ones will be devoted to breaking down my habits. By that I mean, even though I've been improving, I haven't been pushing my limits as I should be. I've been staying too comfortable, milling around the 38-42 second range for speed cards and 320-335 digit range for speed numbers. I need to switch it up a bit to push on through those scores. That's the only way to get better, fast. Anyways, I have jetlag. Goodnight. Or good morning. I don't know anymore.

6th Place Isn't So Bad When It Ranks You 20th In The World

I'm gonna quickly go over my results from each of the events just like I did for the UK competition. Just some basic info: the competition was held in Heilbronn, Germany (near Stuttgart) in a sort of children's science museum called "Experimenta". It was a pretty sweet venue, I've gotta say....with free lunch and all. Fancy. Anyways, here goes:

Day 1

Abstract Images - So last time I had been trying a technique where I just make up images for the blobs as they came up and linked each row into small stories. I tried 200 last time and made a ton of errors, only getting 145 points or so. The problem with doing it that way is that each "abstract" image is a random shape with a random pattern laid on it. The people who designed the damn thing say there are over a million different possible images. Yeah....and using my method, you get a lot of the same images creeping up. It's like that Rorschach Test, only it gets super confusing because you keep thinking you're seeing shapes that look like rabbits, aliens, space ships, or profiles of old men/women....nothing else. So, that being said, I worked on coming up with a system where I have a preset image for each pattern, instead of shape, and then do person/action/object along a journey. I had never practiced it, but did pretty awesome. I managed up to 180 images and made only 1 mistake, getting a score of 174. Not bad for a first try. The new method is perfect, now all I need is to practice speed. I'm pretty sure I can get it to 300 by December.

Binary Marathon - 30 minutes for memorizing binary digits? I have a Masters in Computer Science, yet this is my worst discipline, haha. Last time I totally bombed this, so coming back with a bit more practice I had my eyes set on getting 1500 digits at least. I managed this pretty comfortably. It still doesn't compare to what the best in the world can do, as they can easily score 3000-4000 digits. I'll be happy if I can train myself up to around 2500. Some people have complex systems for this, but mine is plain and easy....I have no plans for revamping this. Good ol practice should do the trick.

Numbers Marathon - 30 minutes for numbers. Last time I went for 880 digits or so and barring a few mistakes, ended up with a score of 750. This time I went for 1000 digits and although I had a few tiny gaps here and there, ended up with 840 digits. I know I can do more than 1000, I just don't think I pushed myself that hard here. Either way, 840 is very good despite Johannes, Simon, and Christian all getting over 1200 digits. The world championships will have this event, but 60 minutes instead of 30. My goal is 2200 digits, which would be close to the world record, but I know others will probably break that with 2400 or something totally ridiculous.

Cards Marathon - How many decks of cards can you memorize in 30 minutes? Last time I did 8 decks smack on the nose, no mistakes. I tried to push myself a bit more with 9 decks and did it solidly perfect (9 decks and 1 card to be precise). 9 decks turns out to be 468 cards + 1 = 469. Pretty sweet. Ben Pridmore did 16 decks....that son of a bitch! He's always amazing at that. The world championships will have 60 minutes for this discipline so I think a good goal is to try 20 decks...and maybe 2 cards instead of the extra 1.

That was the end of Day 1, where I had improved on ALL of my scores from the previous competition. Sweet!

Day 2

Spoken Numbers - 3 trials of spoken numbers. Usually in English, the Germans do theirs in German. Even though I had spent a lot of time learning the 10 numbers 0-9 in German, there was still a fraction of a millisecond lag when translating in my mind. This turns out to be detrimental because I eventually can't keep up with the 1 digit per second pace, always trying to translate. Frustrating. I ended up with a best of 38 digits. I tried for at least 50 but confused some "Noins" and "Nuls"....silly German words.

Historic Dates - Another event where I had practiced a lot, getting 55-60 dates in practice, which is pretty good. But somehow I froze and only got 44, yuck. Worse than my UK competition score. Don't know what happened here but I'm still aiming for 100 by the WMCs.

Names & Faces - I was excited for this one because I've become very good at names. But these names were tough and for some reason things weren't sticking in my brain as they usually do. I'm sure I made a ton of spelling mistakes because I only ended up with 87 points. Another sub-par score. Last competition I managed 114, so a big discrepancy there.

Speed Numbers 1 - I don't know what it is but I somehow always suck at numbers in competition. Ugh, it makes me sick. I practice this everyday and always bomb in competition. WHY? This day was nothing different. I tried for 250 or so digits and made a few mistakes to end up with 160 (barf). For some reason I can't match the speed that I get in practice. I get in the 320-340 range in practice. I think I just need to start practicing on paper only, no computer screens.

Random Words - Tried 203 words, which I felt superbly solid about. But soon figured out that I flipped one pair of words, "ladder" and "pressure", and had messed up "pond lily" which was actually "water lily" duhhhh. What the hell is a "pond lily" anyways? That word doesn't even exist. So my score was 163, which isn't bad but so not close to what I'm capable of. I always practice speed words and manage 90 or so in 5 minutes. So I know I have a lot more room to grow because technically I should be getting scores in the mid to late 200s. Expect that at the WMC. Boom.

Speed Numbers 2 - On the second trial I vowed to rock it. I did, relatively speaking. I scored a perfect 264, which was good enough to beat Ben Pridmore....woahhhhh. That made me feel good. But not that good because I know he can score over 400, lol. Either way, this was more indicative of how good I am at numbers and finally gave me a good international score for numbers. It also beats the USA record that I set back in march (248 digits). Predictions: 360 at the WMCs. 400 at the USA competition in March. Holler.

Speed Cards 1 - I looked at the score board and realized that I needed only 343 points to steal the 20th position in the world rankings. Doing a VERY safe 1m30s speed cards would have given me about 350 points. So my plan was to go very safe the first round and nail it. I did. In 1m14s. It was a piece of cake. I've started to realize that I can go through the deck twice pretty fast and that going through it twice almost ENSURES that I'll nail it. That's comforting to know. So I easily slipped into the #20 slot with that cards round. Now to hit the turbo boost...

Speed Cards 2 - I wanted to get into the 40-50 second range, which is what I get pretty consistently and comfortably in practice. I went smoothly and quickly and slammed the timer down with it reading 48 seconds. Nice! Now to review it in my head. Everything was clear except for a few jumbles on the very first 2 images. I started to organize the deck during recall and although I thought I had figured out that mess at the beginning, it turned out to be kinda wrong. I thought it was "a pirate spinning a sniper rifle" and then "Tiger Woods setting fire to a white board" but in fact it was "a pirate spinning a white board" and "Tiger Woods sniping a fire"....FOREHEAD SLAP....Oh Tiger Woods how you mess up my memory. Everything else in the deck was perfect though. Oh well, such is life. Simon Reinhard broke his old world record with 21.19 seconds. Nice. I have a plan for the future though. I know I vowed that I would never change my system, but I have nothing to do now but train, so I'm switching my system. I need to get into the 20-30 range. My new system is pretty sexy I have to admit, and I'm not just saying that because it's mine.

So there it is. Another international competition under my belt. Some good practice and some good confidence boosters. I have 2 months now to perfect all that and to try and smoke some Chinese ass at the WMCs in Beijing!

2011 German Memory Chämpionships

I added an ümlöt to the title ßecause I'm in Germany and using a German keyboard. Anyways, the competition was awesome. Such amazing competition. I think 5 of the competitors were ranked in the top 10 in the world (Simon Reinhard, Johannes Mallow, Ben Pridmore, Boris Konrad, and Christian Schaeffer). I ended up in 6th place out of 15, which is not bad considering that everyone ahead of me was from the list of names I just wrote, HA.

What's great is that I boosted my ranking yet again from 38th to 20th in the world. Pretty happy with that. Everytime I compete I get better and better. The World Memory Championships is in 2 months and a bit, so I'm sure I'll be top ten (maybe even top 5) material by then. I'll write more about all the events later but for now here are a few cool things I managed at the competition:

469 cards memorized in 30 minutes (thats 9 decks and 1 card) 840 digits memorized in 30 minutes (tried 1000 but made a couple mistakes) 264 digits memorized in 5 minutes (not close to my personal best, but my best in competition, so happy with that).

Oh and Simon Reinhard won the competition. He JUST passed Johannes with a speed cards score of 21.19 seconds (yeah, he can memorize a deck of cards in 21 seconds, it's insane), which is another world record (he set the world record last year with 21.90 seconds and now beat it again). Congrats to him. Everyone at the competition was super friendly and welcoming. Definitely will be there again next year.

Heilbronn, Germany

Yo, I'm in Paris. Getting free wifi at McDonalds. Waiting for my train to Heilbronn, Germany in 2 hours for the annual German Memory Championships (it starts tomorrow). I ought to get downright destroyed by the competition (7 of the top 10 memorizers in the world are German, just to give you an idea) but it doesn't matter. The reason I'm competiting is to get some more competition practice and to boost my ranking from 38th to hopefully top 25 or 20 in the world. My training has been going pretty sweet over the past few weeks, so I'm hoping it translates over into competition. We'll see. Stay tuned for updates.

9/11

A favorite slogan of mine is Alan Arnette's (www.alanarnette.com): "Memories are Everything." As I sit and watch all the 9/11 memorial events on TV, I can"t help but think how true that phrase is. Memories are everything. They are all we have. The fact that we, as humans, can relive that infamous day in our minds and feel the exact same emotions that poured into us is something that is so amazing and important. It allows the people who perished that day to be continuously remembered. It allows that day, a day that challenged us as Americans, to never leave us or our history. They only reason this is possible is because of memory.

The idea pushes Climb For Memory's vision even further, that we all need to make sure our memories stay intact as long as we can let them. In a world where 1 in 6 women and 1 in 10 men are subject to developing Alzheimer"s disease, I can't stress enough the fact that we all need to value our minds and treat it just as well as one would their body if it were at high risk of heart disease.

So with that, I proudly say that I remember and I will never forget that day and the people who lost their lives. I hope you value your mind and hopefully we can all remember that day with ease for the rest of our lives.

Rafa

I don't usually do book reviews, but I figured I'd throw one out there. I just finished reading Rafael Nadal's autobiography "Rafa" the other day. While it wasn't the best book I've ever read, it did provide a great look into the mind of a tennis champion.

I was never really a big fan of Nadal but after reading more about his journey to the top of the tennis world and gaining some insight into how he thinks during his matches, he grew on me. Mostly because when he described his mental game during his incredible 2008 Wimbledon win, among others, I was able to connect with the things he was saying in relation to how I felt as I went on to win the 2011 USA Memory Championship.

The 2011 championship for me, felt mostly like a tennis match between Ron White and I. Ron White, the two-time champion (the Roger Federer of memory) had stolen the win from me in 2010 (you could say he had the mental edge on that one, managing to stay focused and cool under pressure while I did not), and there I was in 2011 battling to the same exact spot I had been in the year before, head-to-head against Ron White.

We went into the final event, where we were given 2 decks of cards to memorize in 5 minutes, knowing that it was going to go until the very end. But I was composed this year. I had matured a lot after having stared at myself in the mirror for a long time after losing in 2010. I knew what I had to do and I knew how to do it.

I memorized both decks. A gamble for sure...but something I had done numerous times in practice without any mistakes. Ron White, while I wondered if he had upped his training to manage two full decks in 5 minutes this year, went for a safe, yet solid, deck and a half. The idea: go a bit slower, make SURE to know all the cards. My idea: go fast, hope that it all sticks.

So there we were on stage. Him, with the solid composure and experience of 2 previous championships under his belt. Me, with a young temperment and the sting of losing in 2010 burned deep in my mind. We sat there reciting the decks, one card each, back and forth - like two professionals rallying in tennis. I didn't even think about whether I knew the rest of the deck, my strategy was to blurt them out as fast as I could to shake Ron's nerves. You only get 15 seconds to say each card, so if your brain suddenly shuts off, as it can often do without warning, you can lose.

I remembered how in 2010 Ron had recited his cards slowly and I knew it was because he wanted to make ABSOLUTELY sure he didn't mess up. He didn't. But now here I was using that to my advantage. He would take 5-8 seconds to say each of his cards, pass me the mic, then I would quickly fire back the next card in 1 second, then return the mic immediately back to him. He was definitely taken aback with my speed and even though I will never know for sure, I assume it also threw his game off a little. But he held the rally. It kept going back and forth, until finally, he ran out. I had out-muscled him. My gamble had paid off. We had made it to his last-memorized, 72nd card. He had nothing left.

I proudly said the next card with a feeling of elation. A feeling as if a huge weight had fallen off of my shoulders. I had never worked so hard for anything in my entire life and it had paid off. Hours and hours of training. Staying in when all my friends were going out. Days of solitude in my room staring at numbers and cards. It had all paid off.

Back to the book. Rafa details his journey to winning all of the Major titles and I couldn't help but relate to the fact that his winning was a result of his hard work. Federer was better than him, just naturally a beast, but Nadal, like me, won on pure gut, stamina, and hard work.

I'm not saying I'm anything close to Nadal. Not at all. He is an incredible athlete and has proven to be one over his long and successful career. But reading his book allowed me, and should allow anyone with a competitive spirit, to piggyback on his champion mentality. It's definitely a great read for anyone who enjoys competition and wants to know what it's like at one of the highest levels.

Paul Schimmelpfenning

Saw this video last week: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DuUaDGka2U

An 18 year old kid memorizing a deck of cards in what seems to be about 20 seconds. If this video is legit then that right there is a world record, beating out Simon Reinhardt's record of 21.90. The video looks pretty real and I have no idea how it would have been faked, so I contacted the guy. Turns out he's a super nice guy and has savant syndrome (you can read more about it on his website: http://mentalglitch.co.cc/).

Anyways, even though his video shows him memorizing in a way that isn't quite like how it's officially done in competition, he still has the ability, which is all that should really matter anyways. I asked him if he uses mnemonics and he said no, but that he can only (at the moment) do it with a particular deck of cards because the font size of the numbers and suits works well with his synesthesia. COOL. He also told me that reciting the deck out loud afterwards is quite hard for him because any outside noise or stimuli can interfere with his synesthesia and cause him to lose some of the cards from memory.

I encouraged him to train and compete in the 2012 USA Memory Competition. I currently hold the US record for memorizing a deck of cards, but I couldn't care less if I lost that title. I'd be much more excited to see someone nab the world record (especially an American) by breaking the 20 second mark.

I'm starting to get the feeling that next year's competition is going to have a strong showing. It will be awesome. There just seems to be more of a buzz on the web about all this memory stuff. Maybe it was Josh's book? Who knows.

Contact

Just a quick heads up. My contact form on my Contact page is acting a bit wonky and wont let me see the email addresses of people who have messaged me recently. So, for Scott, I'm assuming it's Scott Hagwood....in which case, thank you so much for your message! You are awesome and I hope to meet you some day! As for Lexi, I'd love to speak with you but I don't have your email. Email me at climbformemory@gmail.com. For all you memory nerds out there....I have been spending a ridiculous amount of times studying Abstract Images. I'm afraid of myself when I really focus on something. Holy cow. I forget how dangerous I can become when I really want to do well at something. Back in college, that's how I ended up with a 3.9 GPA in my Physics major. I would study so damn much. Never wanted anything but an A grade, I never got anything else. I'm rambling here, but what I have to say is important. Because of how well I did in college, a lot of people often say "wow, damn you must be really smart" or "you must be a genius"...a lot of people also say that now because of my memory skills. But it's all bullshit.

All I do is put forth a lot of effort (or "ass-time", as my friend likes to say - basically how much time you sit on your ass working on whatever it is you are trying to get better at is a good indicator of how good you will get). That is all. And it's no secret either. Look at anyone who is the best at what they do. No one just magically "gets" it overnight. It all comes with sweat and tears. I lost the US Memory Championship in 2010 when I thought I had it in the bag. So what did I do? I made damn well sure that I wouldn't happen the next year (and obviously it didn't) by working my fricking ass off thrice as hard.

This post went from talking about a contact form to persistence. Ha. Well bringing it full circle. Google the name Scott Hagwood. Here is a guy who worked his ass off in the most difficult of situations. He had thyroid cancer and pushed himself to train his memory while undergoing chemo. He won the USA Memory Championship 4 times back in the early 2000s. It all goes back to WANTING. If you want it, you will do whatever it takes to make it happen. And that includes the hard work.

So stop sitting on your ass and get to work on the things you want to do. I guarantee that with hard work you can play the violin like a true virtuoso, run a 4 minute mile, or even memorize a deck of cards in under a minute. Stop reading this and GO!

Cheers.

Nevermind The Bullocks.

Alright so Day 2. Woke up fresh and ready to break some hearts.

Random Words - 15 min. The goal here was to go for 200. I usually practice this in 5 minute intervals and can do around 90 words. Anyways, I went for 200 but only made it to 186. I made 2 dumb mistakes, flipping two pairs of words around (those mistakes each nixed a column of 20 points) and one spelling mistake (who the hell spells "putty" like "puddy"? Apparently me). So my score ended up being 145. Not bad, but I can do better.

Marathon Cards - 30 min. I had done 8 decks solid in practice. I was hesitant to go for that in competition (because in competition it's always 10 times harder for some reason) but I said to hell with it and just tried. I ended up doing it completely perfect. I can't help but think that being able to memorize 8 decks of cards in under a half-hour must be useful SOMEWHERE in SOME casino, right?

Historic Dates - 5 min. My new favorite event. Only just started practicing this one with my new 3-digit system a few weeks ago and I keep improving everytime I practice. I've been managing in the high 40s lately and that's exactly what I got: 47 dates. My goal is to push that up near 100 by the WMCs. Done.

Spoken Numbers. This event is awesome. We listen to a computer spit out random digits, 1 at a time, at a rate of 1 digit a second and see how far we can go before our brains fart. There are 3 attempts, 100, 300, and 400 seconds worth of digits. I tried for 100 digits each time. The first time I lost concentration around digit 42 and couldnt keep up. The second attempt I got all the way to the 100th digit but had a 4 digit gap at around the 48th digit (I couldn't remember Dr. Dre setting himself on fire...CURSE YOU DOCTOR!!). The final attempt I went for 100 again and messed up after digit 50. So I ended up with 50. Respectable, but not great. My goal is to get over 200 in this event next time. I used to be able to do 160, just need more practice.

Speed Cards. Don't even wanna talk about it. Luckily I was sitting almost comfortably in 2nd place by this point (although James Ponder was close behind). I was out of control the first attempt hitting 46 seconds, but butchering the recall beyond hell. Second attempt, I thought about slowing it down to make SURE I got it, but that's not my style. I did it in 50 seconds with the utmost confidence! Turns out I flipped two cards (confused Jesus with Jack Black....clearly a forgivable mistake). So I ended up with a score of 3 cards haha. No worries, that's how it goes sometimes. I still came in 2nd.

Anndddddd....I moved up in the international memory rankings from 101 to 38....finally becoming the BEST American (currently and all-time), beating out the awesome Grandmaster Scott Hagwood, the fake-American David Thomas, and the apparently of-cheating-fame, Yu Zhang (Eric Chang). Sweet!

Anyways, it was awesome hanging out with some memory nerds for the weekend. Always good fun. Cool to finally meet Rick de Jung and James Paterson, and to see Ben's hat again (love that thing). Oh did I mention I met Dominic O Brien? He is awesome and sounds exactly like he does on his Audio book. Fancy that!

God Save The Queen.

Day 1 of the UK Memory Championships. How did I do? Eh....not so great, but I guess not that bad either. I know I can do a lot better, that's for sure. But that's why I'm in these competitions I guess, to figure out what needs the most work.

Names & Faces - 15 min.. This was the first time anyone had tried the "new" international Names & Faces (basically a harder version of what it used to be), so whoever scored the highest was owner of an instant world record. Schwing! I came in second with 113 correct names. Not bad for a first go at these incredibly fictional names (Princess Aliyev, Goda Dubois, Amirmohammed Shah, Zsofia Zuh....seriously?).

Binary Digits - 30 min.. So I had never tried this event in practice. I had only tried 5 minute and 1 minute sessions. I had a strategy but I tried using my 3 digit system which I think ended up slowing me down in the end. Also on paper it's easy to lose your place in the sea of 1s and 0s, which is what happened to me numerous times. I'm used to doing it on computer where the digits you are currently on stay highlighted. Needless to say, I sucked. I was envisioning in my head, getting over 3000 digits (which I'm capable of, I just need to train), but ended up only getting to about 1200 digits, and got a fuck load wrong and scored only 700. Bah. More work to be done here...

Abstract Images - 15 min. I had practiced this one quite a bit. Not really great at it yet though. Another area to work on... I know there is a clever system for it out there, I just have to figure it out. I have a couple of interesting ideas so we'll see. Anyways, I went for 200 images....made a bundle of errors and ended up with 158, I believe. Not bad....Better than my last score of 105. Gotta get it near or over 300 for the competition in Dec.

Speed Numbers - 5 min. This is arguably my best discipline, but for some reason I always eff it up in international competitions. I tried for 280 digits but was weirdly slow and only got to 250 with a few mistakes to give me a score of 171. I felt better the second time around and thought for sure I had it (at least over 200) but spent the majority of recall shifting digits over...it messed me up and I ended up with 71, whaaaaa?

Marathon Numbers - 30 min. So I practiced this the other day and did really well, scoring 800 or so digits. So my goal was to hit 800 on the nose. I did it pretty comfortably (although I was actually a tad slow...probably because I had already memorized thousands of digits already and my mind had turned to mushy peas) and recall felt great. I actually went for 870....a few rows had me troubled here and there but I made guesses that felt good. I'm pretty sure I AT LEAST got 600 digits. But let's be optimistic and say I got between 750-870. We'll find out the results tomorrow.

So tomorrow are all my favorite events: words (love it), historic dates (love it), spoken numbers (love it because I get to travel back to Mt. Everest for that one :) ), and carddddds (freaking love it). Can't imagine me failing at any of those. Anyways....hopefully I can break into the 4000s for a score that might put me in the top 30ish. SWEET.

London Calling

Cheerio. I'm in London. And as usual, it's grey, cloudy, and gloomy. But there are plenty of Boots, Marks & Sparks, double-decker buses, and red phone booths to cheer me up. Just got to my hotel, gonna pass out a bit and let my brain rest for a few hours. The 2011 UK Memory Open starts tomorrow and boy am I stoked. I haven't competed internationally since May 2010. A lot of you may not know, but even though I may be the best memorizer in the US, I ain't diddley-squat on the international circuit. I think at the moment I am ranked 101 in the world. Sucks.

But not for long. The goal is to boost that into the top 30 or even top 20 in the world. I feel like I can do it.

For now though, zzzzzzzz.

First Day of Work

Today is my first day of work at my new job. While I officially quit my 9-5 programming job last Friday, my new job is free of hours and totally run by me. That's not to say it's a free-for-all, lazy, sit-in-front-of-the-couch kinda job. HELL NO. I'll probably be working harder than I did at my last job, honestly. The idea is to focus on my achievements this year and how I can build them into a sustained career. One of the main ways I plan on doing this is to get my ass back into the international memory competition scene and to make a stir over there. I'll travel to London this week, Germany next month, and China in December to make this happen. In the midst of all that, I'll be tackling other big projects. Some I can't share on here because I know my competitors read this and if they had any fricking clue about my idea, they'd be punching themselves in the face asking "WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT??!"

Other projects though, I can elaborate on. I recently finished a book proposal about my Everest climb and how my memory saved my life in the Death Zone. A true story about my recent expedition mixed with all sorts of goodness about the journey I took to improve my memory and reach the top of the world. Anyways, the proposal is currently being distributed to a handful of literary agents. Hopefully someone will bite soon.

Secondary to my book is public speaking. I've done a number of talks in the past, all with amazing responses and reactions, and now I've been getting tons of requests to have my voice be heard in front of this company and that. Good stuff! I love talking and opening the minds of the people before me; it's such a great feeling.

Enough blogging. Gotta practice memorizing as many decks as I can in 30 minutes (aiming for at least 10 packs this Friday at the UK competition) and as many digits as I can in 30 minutes (aiming for at least 1000).

Next up on the climbing list

Hey all. So a little more on the climbing (after all this is Climb For Memory, not Memorize For Memory). So yeah, as the end of my job approaches on Friday, my memory training schedule is gonna become my full-time job. A big part of my memory training is actual physical training. For those of you who don't know, keeping your mind fit has a lot to do with keeping your body fit. It helps improve blood flow to the brain. So I make sure (and so should you!) that I keep in shape, much like I did when training for Mt. Everest.

Keeping in shape will also keep me prepared for my upcoming climbs. Because of the numerous things I have going on memory-related until the end of this year, I'll have to wait till next summer for my next big climb. So next summer I'll be going back to the Alps to do the famous Alp Trilogy (Mont Blanc, the Matterhorn, and the Eiger). I've already climbed Mont Blanc, but this time I'll be using it as an acclimatization climb. Then the Matterhorn and Eiger will follow. They aren't super high-altitude climbs, but are both quite technical.

Check out the beastliness of the Matterhorn:

Located in Zermatt, Switzerland, it rises up 14,692 ft (that's higher than any peak in the continental US). It's a very steep climb and prone to some wicked weather changes and sudden rock-falls.

As for the Eiger, it lies in Grindelwald, Switzerland at a height of 13,025 ft. There are two basic routes up this mountain: the West Ridge and the North Face. The North Face is one of the most dangerous climbs in the world....so needless to say I won't be going up that route. I may never even try that EVER. Wow. Check out this video of Euli Steck (one of the fastest climbers in the world) climbing the North Face in a record breaking time of 2 hours 47 minutes.

Andddd check out the awesomeness of the Eiger's summit ridge. I think I just swallowed my testicles.

Brain Injuries

Had a lovely talk this morning with a few people from the Oliver Zangwill Centre in Ely, England, where they work with brain-injured patients and teach them memory strategies. I was able to enlighten them on what I've been able to do for my memory and how it can be applied to people with serious brain impairments. They all seemed very excited and interested, and are planning on having me become more involved with their work. Very exciting! For those of you out there that feel like you have a hopelessly terrible memory, fear not! I once too had a crappy memory. ANYONE, and I seriously mean ANYONE, can do what I do. It just takes a bit of learning and a tiny bit of effort :) Pick up Dominic O Brien's "Quantum Memory Power" audio CD and get started (this is what I started with).

On a side note, I've been training pretty savagely for the UK Memory Championship, which is at the end of the month. With the scores I've been getting in practice I should be able to boost my international ranking pretty significantly. I'm stuck at 101st place right now because the USA Memory Championship doesn't count towards any of those rankings. Crazy right? What the frick? If only the people who run the USA competition and the international competitions would join hands. It's a bunch of BS that it all isn't one and the same, honestly.

I've been writing a lot about memory lately and not so much about climbing. The next one will be about mountains, I promise.

New Job

Today I put in my 2 week notice for my current job. I have been thinking about how I want to approach the next year of my life for the past couple of months and have decided that to capitalize on all that I am doing, I need to quit my job and focus 100% on memory, memory training, and raising awareness. Part of my big plan is to compete in the 2011 World Memory Championships in December, in China. To do that (and to do well in the competition) I need to treat my training like it is my full-time job. I still have been training everyday and improving, but making it my main priority will allow me to improve in more.

I feel like getting out onto the world stage of memory competitions will raise more awareness for what I am trying to do. Winning the USA Championships was great, but has only taken me so far. So, in preparation for the World Championships, I will be using the UK Memory Championships (at the end of August) and the German Memory Championships (mid September) to practice and push up my rankings to hopefully top 20 or even top 10 in the world.

In addition to that, I will be freeing up more time to focus on my ultimate message of memory improvement and valuing the mind.

More exciting news coming up!

Memory on Everest Part II

I promised my explanation, so here it is. The reason I think my memory did so well up high on Everest is because of something that actually has nothing to do with actual memory. Because we slowly entered (hiked) into Everest Base Camp and beyond, everyday normal things slowly began to vanish. Things like certain colors (green, pink, purple, etc), certain smells (good food, earth, flower, animals, etc), and certain sounds (rivers flowing, thunder, rain, etc.), they all eventually became non-existant with my progressing elevation.

So with that in mind, I believe that my senses became dulled. At 17,000 ft (Base Camp) the air was so thin and lifeless, nothing around me was exciting (aside from the amazing snow and mountains, but even that lost its luster after a couple weeks). When I sat down to do my training, it served as an escape to a more lively, sensory stimulating world. Everything stored in my memory became greatly enhanced since it contrasted so much from my surroundings. Because of that, I believe that when I would memorize the images that presented themselves in my mind were that much more memorable and vivid, thus "sticking" better and forming quicker.

In brief, I don't believe it was my memory per say that was improving, it was more so my visualization skills (which I guess you could argue IS a large part of memory).

Memory on Everest

Before I left for Everest back in March, I reached out to a group of neuro-scientists who were doing a study on the effects of altitude on memory. I had read articles in the past that suggested that people who spent a large amount of time climbing at high altitudes (14,000 ft and higher), returned with minor brain deterioration, similar to patients with Alzheimer's disease. These scientists were trying to show that that this actually wasn't true and that spending time in low-oxygen environments had no effect on memory at all. Because oxygen levels in the elderly tends to be lower than average, they were out to prove that those low levels were not instigators for memory related issues, namely Alzheimer's disease.

Back when I climbed Denali in 2009, I had only just started dabbling in memory improvement and training. Last year on Mont Blanc, the trip was so short and busy, I never had a chance to train while I was there. But this year, on Everest, I was sure I would have a lot of down time. So I contacted the scientists and told them that I would be training my memory on Everest and documenting the results as I climbed to higher and higher altitudes. They were ecstatic!

So I managed to keep a strict regiment of memory training while on the mountain. The training was simple: in the morning, two attempts of memorizing a deck of cards and in the afternoon: two attempts of memorizing as many digits as I could in 5 minutes. The results were absolutely astonishing.

First let's talk about cards. This year I set the USA record for memorizing a deck of cards in the fastest time (63 seconds), but in practice I had been in the low 50, high 40 second range (things are different in training vs stressful competitions!). As I climbed from 9,000 ft to 26,000 ft (Camp 4) on Everest, my scores increased to an average in the low 40 second range, even maxing out at a personal best of 38 seconds! Here is a plot of my times vs days (this is from mid-March to mid-June, a bit before Everest till a bit after):

As you can see, the times vary, but an average trend of decreasing time is visible. You can see that as I got to higher altitudes (which is the middle part of the plot), my times were faster, and then when I returned to sea level, the scores rose again. What's interesting is that certain peaks (where I was slower) coincide with days where we were pushing our bodies to a new, higher altitude. But once my body had acclimatized (say, a day later), the scores plummeted. It was as if my brain was like "oh shoot, hold on, let me figure out this lack of oxygen thing....ok got it...." then boom, overdrive memory ensued. Let's take a look at my memorization times vs. altitude:

The fitted line I calculated shows an obvious downward slope as the altitude increases, which is amazing. This was my experience on Everest, that my memory improved with elevation. Now, there could have been multiple factors here other than oxygen. I could have been experiencing less stress, I could have had less things clouding my mind, or I could have had had more time to focus on the single task of memorizing. I don't think that any of those are the case though. I really believe it was the altitude affecting my memory. How else can you explain it getting "worse" again when I returned to normal elevation? On top of that, I just felt a clarity of memory that I had never experienced before. Not only was my working memory doing incredibly well, so was my autobiographical memory.

As for memory of numbers, the results were similar. At sea level, I had been scoring about 260-290 digits in 5 minutes. On Everest, that increased to between 280-320 digits. Quite an improvement.

Tomorrow I will delve into the reasons why I think that altitude was the main factor in improving my memory on Everest.

Cheers.

Please post any thoughts on this, I'd be curious to see what other people think.

New website!

Hey guys, hope you guys are digging the new website look! Made it more simple and elegant. Easier to read, black-on-white font rather than the blinding green-on-black. Ha!. Also, added Everest pics as well as a "videos" section. You can now also comment on my blog posts....I've been dying to have that available.

More to come over the next week:

- memory related pictures (competitions, alzheimer fundraisers, etc.) - articles section with all of my and Climb For Memory's newspaper/magazine/online articles - more videos! - memory section devoted to outlining different memory techniques (to separate them from my blog)

Cheers everyone!

Death Zone Memory Video!

Here is the video of me attempting to memorize a deck of cards in the Death Zone (26,000 ft) on Mt. Everest. Enjoy!

Memorizing a deck of cards in the Death Zone from nelson dellis on Vimeo.