I’m struggling to make daily progress now, whilst when I started, everyday I’d be 1 minute faster than the day before. What have you guys done to get faster than “fast” when you’re memorizing a deck.
There are 3 major factors that determine speed for cards (this also applies to numbers):
The more there is hesitation with any of these, the longer it will take, and more importantly, the more your focus will break and make it more difficult to recall.
The instantaneous fluent recognition and translation of your cards is probably the biggest thing. If you can get fluent where you see the card and reflexively picture it’s associated image, then you can put your mental energy into quickly building memorable scenes.
It helps to practice each of those three things individually in addition to just trying deck attempts. You need lots of reps training your recognition in order to build fluency.
The system you use does have an impact on ease of translation and how scenes get constructed. What system do you use to turn your cards into images?
Thank you for answering!
Well, with the “just placement” rounds I’m training exactly what you mentioned, getting faster at recognizing and translating.
Since I posted this topic I’ve gone and practiced a few more rounds of “just placement” and broke my last record of 1:30 with 1:13 for that modality.
I, then, went on tried to memorize normally, reviewing as I went to increase recall, and surprisingly I broke my record of 3:57s for a deck with only 3:19s for a deck, although I lost a bit of recall, but that’s still progress.(55% recall compared to the previous 67%, to be exact).
Now, answering your question about which system I use, I use a PO alphabet system. I do this because I’m only using deck memorization in order to master my alphabet system (AA, AB, AC, and so on). I know maybe PAO is better for decks, but my goal is not to compete on deck memorization.
Do you have any tips for reviewing faster as you memorize? Right now I just make the current person interact with the previous one, and it works well, but maybe you know something better than this.
I’m unfamiliar with how this works…
When you see the [2 
], for example, how do you turn that into an image? What are the conversion steps that you go through?
Not necessarily. “Better” depends on what makes sense for you and what you enjoy using and can push as fast as you hope to go. Some people really don’t enjoy using actions that are randomly determined by the deal. Some people don’t like using people and have trouble distinguishing between them when memorizing quickly. It really depends on your mindset.
I’m not exactly sure what you mean by this. If you’re using a memory palace, each scene can stand on its own at its own locus. There really shouldn’t be a need to connect the different scenes together. If this is what you’re doing it may be overkill and contributing to your struggles with overall speed.
Try just making your PO happen organically at each location and don’t worry about interconnecting them. Make them self contained with their locus.
Well, 2 of Clubs is BC, so for me that is benedict cumberbatch (not sure if this is how you write his name). So if it was 2 of clubs followed by 5 of Spades (ES), then he would be holding an acoustic guitar, ES = Ed Sheeran.
I agree
It’s not a “need”, it just makes it easier to recall more, for now at least. When I started, I wasn’t doing this and I would almost always forget the entire first room of my memory palace, and this sorta fixed that.
However, I will definitely try not connecting them and see what happens. Although I imagine it’ll just make the recall harder.
Athletes did well with PA, PO or PAO over the years (a significant part of the memory community uses PAO).
It’s all about speed of translation as @TheHumanTim said.
With PAO/PA/PO (Single-image systems) you have 52 elements to consiously encode into images.
I’d suggest if you want to test your card memorization with simpler scenes? Like PA (Person-Action) or PO (Person-Object). Simpler scenes might be your thing.
For example:
2 of Clubs - 5 of Spades: Benedict C. / playing an acoustic guitar /
and move on to the next locus etc.. It will take you 26 loci to memorize a deck but usually simpler scenes are easier to recall.
Later when you train well and you get used to your images, you can try PAO again and see how it goes.
It’s all down to personal preference and how much time you have in order to invest into training fluency with a system.
For e.g. I realised that encoding 52 elements is not “good enough” for me so I started working on 2704 image system where I would be able to encode only 26 elements per deck.
It’s all down to your personal wiring but I guess if you pour so so much time working on PAO without dropping any elements or simplifying your scenes you will eventually see results as you get better at seeing your images. But again, as with everything in life, takes time.
A tip from @climbformemory I read somewhere was to carry one card every day in your pocket and constantly look at it thoroughout your day, see vividly who the person is, what the action is and what the object is. After a month and a half, you will have spent many hours looking at each card every day you would be able to instantly see it’s PAO.
Another advice I’ve tried previously is to forget the memorization process and just drill and build PAO scenes in your head while you’re holding the deck. Just see the PAOs but don’t remember them. Learn well to chain P-A-Os together. This will help build your fluency even further.
If eventually you realize that PAO is not your thing, it’s important also to dip your toe in different approaches.
For example Boris Konrad, for the first 10 years of his memory career, used 1-single image card system → One card meant only one thing - 2 of clubs - Cat, 5 of diamonds - chainsaw, 2 of hearts - gun, etc…
And of course if you’re ambitious and you have time - nothing beats a 2-card system in terms of data compression as each and every pair of cards mean 1 image which means that instead of 52 images to encode, you would have to deal with only 26. But again, is it worth learning 2704 images (for each possible card pair) and getting fluent with them? Maybe yes, maybe not? It’s up to you.
that’s my point too, this is one of the reason I picked 2 card block system (1352 images), instead of total 2704. Since I don’t have much time to invest in making it.
and I already had 3 digit system and when I created 3 digit system I also created H00-H99 so it’s like I had everything ready just not trying. so I started it, as it’s not taking any time to create , just 160 extra images.
I hope it works, and if not there are always other choices.
some of you who are using 1352, and ever wanted to upgrade, there is always a plan to upgrade to full as well, that’s no big deal just make shadow of each image like lance suggested. t, m, t - tomato could be potato in shadow anything.
or maybe can visualize tomato as animated image, and other one as real tomato.
or maybe visualize tomato as more detailed, and other one as blurry.
you can try various approach to make it feel different from shadow image. that’s what true shadow system is. I use 2 card block and that’s not shadow.
I’ve considered that approach too. A lot of people achieved great speeds with 2-block.
The philosophy behind my approach is that once mastering a large system, I don’t want to deal with the variable image stacking.
It’s my personal preference to have consistency in the memory palace building process (13 loci - 4 cards per locus) always instead of my scenes being variable each time. But again, the 2-block approach is perfect for some people, and not optimal for others.
After pouring thousands of hours to get fast with 1352 image system, one is less likely to expand to 2704 as there would be so so much overwriting of images and phonetics for suit combos, etc.. Not that it’s impossible but it feels like a wasted effort just to get faster with a fraction of a second or even a full second (for the guys that are sub-15 secs).
yeah that’s true, I am not going to try for 2704 ever anyway. Just pointing out there is a way to expand.
I always feel lots of sub 15 sec user uses PAO , it didn’t work for me but maybe I missed something, If I put same effort in PAO that I do in 2 card block , I might have done much better.
like literally took a month to get my first 52 cards. even by doing same thing with 1 card system didn’t take much time when I was beginner in memory training.
So I am treating card as a medium to train my numbers event. Surprisingly I am getting to know my locus more better in detailed, and training 2 card block making my numbers game better and better and even more faster.
But It’s not like it’s giving me any trouble so I am also trying 2 card block to see how far I can go, right now my best with it is 30.28 sec 52 cards after 1 month training continuously. getting 52 for the first time was the hardest obstacle.
Exactly! That’s my point too.
No matter the system, the amount of time one would spend training with it is proportionate to their success with it.
