I am in the process of creating two separate PAO Major Systems (#00 - #99) for both male and female characters. At present I have one list (#00 - #99) which is a mix of both genders.
The obvious advantages of having two separate systems is that you can alternate between one or the other system to avoid ‘ghosting’ if you are running an exercise of recalling large tranches of numbers.
Two images of my new system (under construction) for my #30 and #33 are:
I know from following other discussions elsewhere on this forum that people often have difficulty with the actions in their PAO systems. So if one has two separate Person Systems (Male/Female) and a set of independent objects list (#00 - #99), you could use a MOF (Male/ Object/ Female) system to break down 6-digit numbers as opposed to a PAO system as we know it?
Definitely could work, although using the same objects for both lists will probably still cause issues with ghosting. I’d honestly probably recommend just building more palaces so that you can give them an off-day between memorizing with them. This will be much easier than taking the time to learn a whole other secondary person association to fluency and cause less issues with hesitation when memorizing…
I think adding another person will cause your fluency with your original person to go down, because now there will be hesitation when reading to determine which is which. You’re going to want to reflexively read it as your original person (which is great, the goal is fluency!) and you’re going to have to actively focus on pulling recognition from one list or the other. This was a big issue I ran into when I developed my Split P/O 2-card system. I found that the hesitation in determining which block of associations to pull from was just enough to hurt my speed and my scene retention because it had to be actively considered when going through the run. It can be overcome with lots of drilling but I don’t think its anywhere near as clean as knowing that every time a certain number is in the person position it is always a single specific person, no exceptions.
I also see you’re still sticking with an initials-based structure for your people rather than taking advantage of the full power of Major to provide single simple names via consecutive sounds. Is there any reason for still sticking with initials other than you being used to that format from the Dominic system?
I assume your object list follows Major in the usual way, reading consecutive consonant sounds as a single word wherever possible, right? So when memorizing, you have to flip back and forth between reading numbers as initials for the people, and reading numbers as simple words for objects? In my experience, mixing systems and structures like that creates a speed barrier and causes hesitation when trying to go quickly. I know you’re pretty set on this approach but I’ll keep encouraging you to go all the way with the Major structure for your people and move past using initials!
