Huggy,
It helps to be flexible with the objects. In that example you could imagine your dog bench pressing a whole tray of pints of lagers, or one absolutely giant glass of lager turned on its side (no doubt with buxom waitresses looking on in admiration!). You’re going to be able to identify which card it is when it matters anyway, as long as the object(s) you imagine isn’t too far off from your “archetype object” (the pint of lager).
Hey guys,
Five months ago my personal best was 5 minutes memorizing a deck of cards…
Now it is 2:52 without any mistake. (52 loci 52 cards)
An advice: This progress was mainly because somebody adviced I should use “extra” objects en every locations.
For example it is really hard to recall this image: “my grandmother wears white clothes and she stands in the garden”.
But now I use objects: the garden is ‘a field of green grass’ so I imagine my grandma’s white clothes which touches the green grass so the clothes will be dirty.
Instead of “garden” you can use:
garden+grass
garden+flowers
garden+sunshine
garden+fresh/humid air
Thanks Chris. That is helpful.
I am slowly becoming more creative with my images.
Although, I do find that I still flash back to previous locis whilst memorising to keep it fresh in my head. This may just be because I am still relatively new to this, but at the moment, it helps.
I did try to stop this (after good advice from Hype), but I find that whilst flashing through my journey without looking back may shave a minute or two off of my best time (6:08), it then consequently takes 3 times longer to recall.
Do you have any advice on this?
I have a tip for you, Huggy.
You mentioned a couple times having to go back and look at prior loci. I would have to do that too but instead I have a little trick that lets me get around this. After every second loci I come up with an image using the first letters of the names of the characters from those two loci and I put that between the second and third loci for instance if Michael Jackson did something and then Oprah did something after Oprah’s loci I would put a mop. M Op. For some reason these images are easy to remember. And if I can remember the person I can usually remember the action and the object.
Edit: it can take so long to put just one PAO together that once I can read the cards, I tend to want to move on immediately. So I may spend 30 seconds just recalling three cards and then spend just one second visualizing them. If I am calm and make sure I spend a few seconds ‘staring at’ the final image without changing it up, these extra images (mop) are all I need. In order to do this quickly, you need to hold the name of your last P in mind, and I think this helps too.
Edit: On the other hand Dominic O’Brien recommends looking back. He recommends reviewing every five objects and then 25 objects and then 125 objects and so on. Still, this sounds like advice that must eventually be outgrown for something as short as a deck. He may have been an 8 time champ, but I don’t think his times are that competitive anymore…
Hi DH,
Thanks for your tip. I can see how your object placement would trigger the people required, but for me personally, I am not sure it would be of much benefit as I have various people under the same initials.
Also, I think that adding another 9 objects on top of the 52 I am currently dealing with may complicate things, but I will certainly give it a go and let you know how I get on.
There are certain instances when I can link the object of one loci to the person of the next, which can speed things up, but at the moment, I think I am more concerned with getting perfect recall every time which inevitably means significantly slower times.
I am just about to embark on Dominic’s book which I got for xmas actually. I has great reviews on Amazon, and I eventually want to delve into the 00-99 system for every day use - not just cards. 
It’s a good beginner book. I just started it and can see that I’ve really overlooked some basics such as really knowing my characters. Well, I certainly don’t want to press or God forbid sound argumentative, but about the extra items: I have multiple people with the same initials too, but I slap the extra items on just as a little safety net - I never even waste more than one second visualizing them (except when I’m making them up). At first I had that safety net idea saying “I’ll probably just forget these, but might as well experiment” but strangely…I remember them with much greater ease and frequency than the important PAO Images. Then when I get stuck, I only have to cycle through 4 or 5 characters and problem solved. Unlike you I go for speed over accuracy and often don’t have perfect recall, so I need the extra help.
But out of curiousity, when you PAO, do you vividly see faces or is it more body type/ hair/clothes?
Hi DH,
Yes, I am hoping to pick up some useful information from it and see where it takes me.
I am open to all suggestions and will try anything once, so will see if I have the same success with your method…
I did also try going for speed a week or two ago and got some really low times, but I then got frustrated with the lengthy recall times, skipping past certain loci (to come back to later) and hitting just 47-48 cards out of the 52, which is why I am now concentrating on the accuracy. I am assuming (hoping) that the speed will just come in the natural course of time, but given that I have only been doing this for a month or two, I am trying not to be too hard on myself!
With regards to my PAO, I tend to try and visualise the whole person, but I suppose mainly focusing on the face more than the body. Unless of course I am focusing on The Hulk or Spiderman where the body is more visual than the face.
As a general note, I must say that I have found the icue app for my iphone and ipad avery convenient and helpful in advancing to better, (but still novice ;)) level!
I’m not really able to visualize faces… Even my girlfriend and parents I can only visualize with some accuracy and tremendous effort, which is why now all of my characters are like tin man, Waldo, King Kong, cartman,Edward scissor hands, scooby doo… That’s the other reason to switch from pao. My mind may not be optimized for remembering people. My characters are viewed from afar and often from the side, top, or back. Does anyone else have this problem with faces?
Yes… I’m getting better at it though.
I use a lot of objects and animals mixed in with people. (Not PAO)
Yep, the less human the better. I was just reading a post where Nelson says 10 of his characters are from ninja turtles. I wouldn’t be able to pull it off since they’re shaped similarly. What do you use if not PAO? Cards are images yes, but just nouns, or also verbs or adjectives perhaps? How many do you slap in a single loci and do they interactor just hang out side by side?
I answered in a new thread:
Examples of Non-PAO Systems
I hope this isn’t cheating - I only have one deck of cards right now, and I couldn’t recall one loci from memory - but when I saw the cards, the image came flooding back, so if I did have a second deck to put together, I definitely would have been able to arrange the last 3 cards: 3:57.9
Slight improve on my previous 6:28.
New time of 5:55, with no errors, but more importantly for me, an easy recall of about 2 mins!
EDIT - 5:15, no errors - easy recall!
Hell yes.
Did you notice anything different about what you’re doing or how the images are looking, since you didn’t just remember them more quickly, but they stuck so well?
To be honest, I think that it has purely been down to becoming more familiar with my cards? I say this because my last 4 attempts have all been 100% accurate with times gradually coming down (7:00, 6:58, 5:55 & 5:15).
Prior to that, I was getting 47-51 correct and struggling with recall of about 8 mins!!
I do recall someone in this thread previously saying that the recall becomes easier as your times improve, so I’m hoping that it continues to go in the right direction!
My goals are to get under 5 minutes, 3 minutes and then a minute, but I realise that this may take some time!!.. 
If you can do 5 15, you can already do 5 even if you technically have not :). As far as 1 minute memorization goes, I have that goal and then some (my actual goal is to be competitive for AMC 2014) but just in case you did not know, to be a grandmaster of memory, the deck requirement is a full 2 minutes. Just something to think about while struggling to shave off that final minute.
Dunno how long 1 minute will take, but you’re improving so quickly that I would wager you’ll break 3 minutes sooner than you probably expect.
Yes, I think that given how close I am, I will probably get under 5 minutes soon! Let’s just hope I don’t hit that brick wall that I have read people talking about! 
That is some goal DH, and wish you all the best with it!! Do let us know how you get on. At the moment, I am only doing this for fun, but you never know where it will take you.
I did not know that about the “Grand Master”? I assume that refers to just the memorising time, not the memorising and recall combined?
Thanks for your confidence in me DH, but I do believe that you have advanced alot faster than me! Didn’t you say that you was now on 3-4 minutes from like 7-8 a week ago…now that is improvement! What has helped you?
I may have been doing cards for less than two weeks, but I’ve practiced for over 75 hours. I’m ‘the fastest learner I know’ for the one reason that every new skill I learn I spend every spare minute on. I can’t help it- I’am excitable and kind of (very) obsessive. The problem is that I don’t have the follow through of a virtuoso. Here’s the pattern: I see someone memorize a deck in 1:45, think only of doing so myself, achieve it at record speed by spending every spare minute on it (and sleeping less so I have more time to practice). Then I say “good enough” and lose interest completely, never memorizing, or doing whatever the skill is, again. Every time I start a new skill I imagine myself following through to true mastery, but once I’m better than anyone I know (possible because my interests tend to be at somewhat obscure: unicycle tricks, sleight of hand, etc.) the skill gets really, really boring. I will probably fulfill the grandmaster requirements fairly quickly and then sadly leave the method of loci behind completely. It’s sad, a pattern I hate and would love to defy someday, but I have never held an interest for long. I say I want to Compete in 2014, and God it really is true, but the chance that this whole thing will bore me by March of THIS year is very high :(.
So that’s the complete and rather personal answer.
GMM requirements are deck in 2, ( several minutes, at least 2, for recall) 1000 digits in an hour, and 10 decks in an hour. A very doable task for a “grandmaster” title (compared to say, chess, I would think is harder but actually have no idea). There are currently 122 GMMs.
New time, 3:52.5
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Thanks for your explanation. I guess that does explain how you have come on so much in the past week! Although the one thing that does spring to mind, is how many journeys must you have to practice as much as you do?
I only have 4 journeys at present and I practice just 1-3 decks a day on the train to and from work and even then I find that some of my routes can become clogged. For example, I could still recite the deck that I memorised (my 5:15 time) at 8:30 this morning so using that journey again today would probably be more difficult.
It is a shame that you would get bored of such a skill, as it is such a cool one to possess. I am planning to expand my memory techniques beyond the deck of cards and into everyday things which I think will be very useful. Especially for exams, but not until I get under 3 mins with the cards!