Memory Methods

[MichaelErskine]

Use routes instead of a story, since you have problems with memorising the images in the correct order.

OK, I have a simple route partially memorised (a route through my home with 79 waypoints in total - very easy to recall after only an hour). I've only tried one solve so far and I only forgot to include one location out of the first 14 in an edges-only solve so it's looking promising for remembering the sequence.

 

[Sakarie]

Use routes instead of a story, since you have problems with memorising the images in the correct order.

OK, I have a simple route partially memorised (a route through my home with 79 waypoints in total - very easy to recall after only an hour). I've only tried one solve so far and I only forgot to include one location out of the first 14 in an edges-only solve so it's looking promising for remembering the sequence.

79 waypoints?! How do you memorize?!

14 places for edges, that's not good, but it's resonable. I guess that you have one image per location, or two per location, but pre-oriented. Still, it would probably be better to cut it down to fewer.

Then you have 65 left... for 8 corners... I don't know how you plan to do it, but I only want to say that it would probably be easier with fewer waypoints.

But recalling 79 places, after one hour, that's not bad at all!

I'm sorry if I misunderstood something, and underrated having 79 waypoints...

 

[Mike Hughey]

Use routes instead of a story, since you have problems with memorising the images in the correct order.

OK, I have a simple route partially memorised (a route through my home with 79 waypoints in total - very easy to recall after only an hour). I've only tried one solve so far and I only forgot to include one location out of the first 14 in an edges-only solve so it's looking promising for remembering the sequence.

79 waypoints?! How do you memorize?!

14 places for edges, that's not good, but it's resonable. I guess that you have one image per location, or two per location, but pre-oriented. Still, it would probably be better to cut it down to fewer.

Then you have 65 left... for 8 corners... I don't know how you plan to do it, but I only want to say that it would probably be easier with fewer waypoints.

But recalling 79 places, after one hour, that's not bad at all!

I'm sorry if I misunderstood something, and underrated having 79 waypoints...

It's great - it gives him the ability to do multiple cubes, or 4x4x4 or 5x5x5 later. Awesome job!

Eventually you can experiment with putting multiple images at each location. I use 3 images per location. That can really increase your capacity. But it sounds like you're off to a good start.

 

[blah]

I finally took the time to read through the entirety of this thread since I have recently begun to work on trying to accomplish bld. I have tried a few times, but have had no real success.

The actual memo is really holding me back, and was hoping that I would find something buried in these pages that would help. Unfortunately, it seems like I already have a pretty solid understanding of how the memo works. It is just a matter of me as of yet being unable to do it. Some of us are "blessed" with an absolutely horrid memory. This may take awhile... but I'm getting pretty determined to do this!

We'll talk about this when I go home (to Kentucky).

 

[MichaelErskine]

79 waypoints?! How do you memorize?!

14 places for edges, that's not good, but it's resonable. I guess that you have one image per location, or two per location, but pre-oriented. Still, it would probably be better to cut it down to fewer.

Then you have 65 left... for 8 corners... I don't know how you plan to do it, but I only want to say that it would probably be easier with fewer waypoints.

But recalling 79 places, after one hour, that's not bad at all!

I'm sorry if I misunderstood something, and underrated having 79 waypoints...

Well, the waypoints are very simple (car, path, tree, porch, front door, coat hooks, mirror, stairs, landing, bathroom door, etc.) and with one object per location I only get upstairs into the bathroom before I have all my edges! I haven't tried the corners yet (I need to work on the setup moves for the Y-Perm corner swaps) but my edges have been recalled perfectly so far with only forgetting the odd waypoint in the 5 or so solves I've tried so far. I feel quite inspired and I hope for a success in the next few days.

I have the whole house in the route so It may prove useful for things beyond cubing memorisation. BTW: the article that worked best for me for this first "Elephant Path" was http://memory-sports.com/2009/03/28/how-to-become-a-memory-champion-part-1/

I feel a bit foolish for not having tried this before now I think that although I'd heard of this technique many times before, I thought that learning all my colour-pair objects was enough to cope with. I didn't realise that a journey through my home could be so easy to incorporate with the objects. Now I'm a bit worried that I won't be able to disassociate the objects between solves! I've already had the situation twice in my stories where a door is covered in soup and that's a difficult image to erase

 

[MichaelErskine]

It's great - it gives him the ability to do multiple cubes, or 4x4x4 or 5x5x5 later. Awesome job!

Eventually you can experiment with putting multiple images at each location. I use 3 images per location. That can really increase your capacity. But it sounds like you're off to a good start.

Thanks Mike, I feel great about this new development. I've had the feeling for some time that there was something I was missing!

 

[cmhardw]

Now I'm a bit worried that I won't be able to disassociate the objects between solves! I've already had the situation twice in my stories where a door is covered in soup and that's a difficult image to erase

This is the one downside to using routes. I also have the exact same problem, and for this reason I always rest my journeys about a week before reusing them. I have 7 routes created for doing 5x5x5 solves, 9 routes for 4x4x4 solves, and 30 routes for 3x3x3 solves. This works out to around 230 routepoints or journey locations.

What this means is that I can only do seven 5x5x5 solves within a week, nine 4x4x4 solves, and thirty 3x3x3 solves. Realistically I never do this many, but it allows me the option to do so. Also, I always rest two 5x5x5 routes, three 4x4x4 routes, and six 3x3x3 routes for use only in competition. This means I end up resting them for 3-6 month stretches.

I, like Mike, place 3 images per routepoint. This means we require fewer routepoints per solve than those who use one image per location. Some world class memory experts place three images per location (Ben Pridmore), and some world class memory experts place one image per location (Boris Konrad). Basically use the method you prefer most for memorization. If you place 3 images per location you end up refining your images, their personalities, how they interact with eachother, etc.. If you place one image per location you end up refining your journeys, having plenty of them, making sure they are very vivid, etc.. At least this is what I have gathered from talking to both Ben and Boris about this topic.

Hope this helps,
Chris

 

[Mike Hughey]

Now I'm a bit worried that I won't be able to disassociate the objects between solves! I've already had the situation twice in my stories where a door is covered in soup and that's a difficult image to erase

This is the one downside to using routes.

I admit I don't have the same problem Chris does with remembering old solves. For some reason it's just not a big problem for me - I reuse regularly. I often find myself reusing rooms every 2 days.

It seems to me that using 3 images per location helps that, though. If you wind up with the same exact "picture" at a location twice in a row, it does tend to get pretty well cemented in your mind, and it's hard to break. But with 3 images per location, it's highly unlikely you'll get the exact same set of 3 at the same location twice in a row - in fact, it almost never happens.

 

[aronpm]

I only have 3 routes, and they're only long enough to store a single 3x3x3 each. That's using 2 images per location, and 1 sticker per image. I do find that I have trouble reusing my route, but after each solve, I try to visualize going through the route, but with no items. It works much better if I try to visualize in great detail the items that are actually on that route.

It sucks, though, when you do a solve, and the solve afterwards has the exact same person in the exact same place, just doing something different. That's why I've started cycling through my routes.

I am thinking about switching to letter pairs, so I would have one 2 images per location and 2 stickers per image. That's 'more powerful', right? I'm also unsure about corners. I currently use a horrid system where I memorize letters for orientation, numbers for permutation, and solve one piece at a time. Would it be better to practice visual memorization?

 

[F.P.]

Now I'm a bit worried that I won't be able to disassociate the objects between solves! I've already had the situation twice in my stories where a door is covered in soup and that's a difficult image to erase

That's normal; I'd recommend you to create a few routes for 3x3x3 bld cubing; they don't have to be that long and you can use a different one each time. It usually takes about 2 days until the images are more or less erased.

 

[Daniel Wu]

Okay. So, I'm using M2 and Old Pochmann for blindsolving and it's been working out okay. One difficultly that I've been noticing though is that I'm horribly slow at memorizing (can be up to 4 minutes or more) despite a decent amount of practise. Of course I could use much more practise. My method for memorizing was some sort of PAO system that got overdeveloped and extremely complicated. I kept forgeting parts of it and I don't even remember how to do it because I put in ways to detect M slice orientation, parity, flipped egdes, and flipped corners. It was to complicated and confusing so now I decided that I want to try to start with a clean slate and a new memory system.

I was thinking of trying something like this. For edges, there will be one image per sticker. I'll memorize the images in groups of two and use Roman rooms. One room with ten places will be more than enough for one cube. I don't really have a good idea for a simple system for corners. I was thinking that maybe I'd try memorizing the corners visually but then taking the sticker position and remembering the color and assosciate that with the corner position that was visually memorized (if that made any sense...).

So yeah. Is this a good idea? Bad idea? Just stupid???

(And yes, I know I need much more practice.)

 

[powershotman]

Okay. So, I'm using M2 and Old Pochmann for blindsolving and it's been working out okay. One difficultly that I've been noticing though is that I'm horribly slow at memorizing (can be up to 4 minutes or more) despite a decent amount of practise. Of course I could use much more practise. My method for memorizing was some sort of PAO system that got overdeveloped and extremely complicated. I kept forgeting parts of it and I don't even remember how to do it because I put in ways to detect M slice orientation, parity, flipped egdes, and flipped corners. It was to complicated and confusing so now I decided that I want to try to start with a clean slate and a new memory system.

I was thinking of trying something like this. For edges, there will be one image per sticker. I'll memorize the images in groups of two and use Roman rooms. One room with ten places will be more than enough for one cube. I don't really have a good idea for a simple system for corners. I was thinking that maybe I'd try memorizing the corners visually but then taking the sticker position and remembering the color and assosciate that with the corner position that was visually memorized (if that made any sense...).

So yeah. Is this a good idea? Bad idea? Just stupid???

(And yes, I know I need much more practice.)

hi,rickcube ,
have u watched ericlimeback's vid ?
it's a old vid,
1letter for 1 surface of edge
and then u might come out with words like CAKE,SIR,RUN, or something
which is quite easy for me to memorise

for corners,i think i do the same with you..
i will say the colour out and memo the sequence
i just dont find any other method to memo

anyone enlighten me?

 

[PEZenfuego]

Okay. So, I'm using M2 and Old Pochmann for blindsolving and it's been working out okay. One difficultly that I've been noticing though is that I'm horribly slow at memorizing (can be up to 4 minutes or more) despite a decent amount of practise. Of course I could use much more practise. My method for memorizing was some sort of PAO system that got overdeveloped and extremely complicated. I kept forgeting parts of it and I don't even remember how to do it because I put in ways to detect M slice orientation, parity, flipped egdes, and flipped corners. It was to complicated and confusing so now I decided that I want to try to start with a clean slate and a new memory system.

I was thinking of trying something like this. For edges, there will be one image per sticker. I'll memorize the images in groups of two and use Roman rooms. One room with ten places will be more than enough for one cube. I don't really have a good idea for a simple system for corners. I was thinking that maybe I'd try memorizing the corners visually but then taking the sticker position and remembering the color and assosciate that with the corner position that was visually memorized (if that made any sense...).

So yeah. Is this a good idea? Bad idea? Just stupid???

(And yes, I know I need much more practice.)

hi,rickcube ,
have u watched ericlimeback's vid ?
it's a old vid,
1letter for 1 surface of edge
and then u might come out with words like CAKE,SIR,RUN, or something
which is quite easy for me to memorise

for corners,i think i do the same with you..
i will say the colour out and memo the sequence
i just dont find any other method to memo

anyone enlighten me?
btw my time is 4-5mins

I love the memo method he uses for corners. Epic win imo.

 

[ZamHalen]

I've learned old pochman and can do solves(without the blindfold).But i'm having a problem with memorizing the cube.I have tried the system that is shown on Pochman's site but i can't find things for all of the color pairs.So whenever i try memorizing i end up asking people for help with finding things for different colors which i realize isn't a good idea because i might forget it.
Is there a memorization method that someone can recommend for me?I'll also mention that i've been thinking about trying visual memorization.Should i give that a shot?
(Sorry if this isn't a thread for questions like this.All i've got to say is it seemed a good idea at the time.)

 

[PEZenfuego]

I've learned old pochman and can do solves(without the blindfold).But i'm having a problem with memorizing the cube.I have tried the system that is shown on Pochman's site but i can't find things for all of the color pairs.So whenever i try memorizing i end up asking people for help with finding things for different colors which i realize isn't a good idea because i might forget it.
Is there a memorization method that someone can recommend for me?I'll also mention that i've been thinking about trying visual memorization.Should i give that a shot?
(Sorry if this isn't a thread for questions like this.All i've got to say is it seemed a good idea at the time.)

Assigning a letter to each sticker is a good start. Let me elaborate. For example when you memorize the edges the U face of the cube could have a b c d for the 4 edges. The front face could have e f g h...etc

Then all you have to do is determine what letter the buffer piece has to go to think of a word for it and then move on to the next part. It makes going through cycles a lot easier than with Pochmann's memo method (for me at least-everyone is different). Or you could use the method described in the above video. You look at your buffer piece, memorize the color via memorizing a letter, then tap where it needs to go to memorize it that way.

Just go with what you feel. If one method isn't right for you, try another.

 

[Sakarie]

My memosystem for 3x3 right now is like this:

I start memoing edges, with every sticker have a letter. I bunch them together four by four, improvising images, which somtimes is two images (letters 2+2, 1+3 or 3+1) merged into one. The images are placed into a place in a memoryroute (infact I only have like 5, since I hate breaking in new memoryroutes.) Each route consists of three places, covering the ~12 letters of the edges.

Then I memo corners, one letter per sticker. I stick them in pairs (cause that's how I will solve them), and than just bunch all of the pairs together.

I solve corners first, with BH, so I barely have to remember them. Edges have to be remembered a bit better, since it's like 40 seconds between memo and solve, done with M2.

 

[ribonzz]

Damn I can't memorized it yet! I already learn it for 2 month

 

[Micael]

Now I'm a bit worried that I won't be able to disassociate the objects between solves! I've already had the situation twice in my stories where a door is covered in soup and that's a difficult image to erase

This is the one downside to using routes.

I admit I don't have the same problem Chris does with remembering old solves. For some reason it's just not a big problem for me - I reuse regularly. I often find myself reusing rooms every 2 days.

It seems to me that using 3 images per location helps that, though. If you wind up with the same exact "picture" at a location twice in a row, it does tend to get pretty well cemented in your mind, and it's hard to break. But with 3 images per location, it's highly unlikely you'll get the exact same set of 3 at the same location twice in a row - in fact, it almost never happens.

Personnally, I had that problem, but it was easily solve by creating more "route". Now I use 24 (for 24 3x3x3 or less for big cubes) and it is a nice amount. Quite useful for multiBLD where images are stored more memorable and thus take longer to forget. If I do not practice a lot, it can takes up to two weeks before I re-use a route and I found out that in that case memo can be fast and safe (despite few practice).

 

[blizzardmb]

How long are the typical "routes"?
I was planning on making some and I have no idea how many points they should have. Can an experienced blindsolver please help me out?

 

[DennisStrehlau]

How long are the typical "routes"?
I was planning on making some and I have no idea how many points they should have. Can an experienced blindsolver please help me out?

Hey.
Well my routes have 4 points but usually i only really need 3.
Thats because i make 1 image out ouf 2. If you have single images, i think you sould have 8 points.

Greetings, Dennis