I have opportunity to do some workshops/lectures/shows about memory techniques in the culture center in my hometown. Could you brainstorm any ideas?
Because as to give a lecture i know that it could be about for example learning new words in foreign language or remembering faces, or some linking and palace stuff, but what about the situation, where i am sitting in front of the table, can have some accessories and people are passing by (let’s assume that there is a big workshop day, where many people presents their ideas - like on the left i have a box, where somebody teaches how to paint and on the right is a juggler). How to get the attention of like… 5 people and get them enough interest to instill in them the idea of coming later. I can memorize a deck of card earlier, but in front of them it takes me like 2 minutes - its to much time… Maybe memorize pi and start to write them down on a big blackboard and then continue with explaining this concept in some entertaining way. I watched tedtalks of Nelson and Joshua, but that was a speech, so sth little different. You can gather them and then do with them mix of journey/palace method to remember a list of things, but i am not sure if this would interest them enough. What do you think? Or maybe present interesting way of remembering capital cities?
Please help, give some ideas and maybe more people will do this kind of presentations in their cities.
(If this topic was mentioned earlier please let me know, it felt kind of weird to me, but i couldn’t remember to read here about it).
What you want are mentalist tricks.
Go here : http://headinside.blogspot.com.au/
This site covers mnemonics as well as various math and science tricks. Its also got very good videos of magic tricks - some mnemonically linked.
The blog writer does turn up here occasionally.
You could learn a day for any date method and then as people their birthday and tell them the day it falls this year, next year or when they were born. On the previous posters link you can purchase Scott Crams ‘Day One’ method which is great.
You could memorise their credit card for them to show them how easy it is, most people don’t know their own credit card number. I find memorising my credit card very handy when internet shopping!
there are lots of cool things you can do
Ask people what they do themselves and come up with ways that mnemonics would help e.g. prices, product codes, measurements, names and faces
Also things like birthdays, maybe remember a load of historical things that happened in the dates leading up to and beyond the event, some people like that kind of thing.
A street performer, a magician that I met, told me he had a friend who was also a street performer, and he would ask people their zipcodes and say things like “Ah yes, when I’m in such and such a town, I enjoy a nice dinner at this or that place.” It’s quite a project, but pretty cool.