Hello there. I am based in the UK and new to the forum, but I have been thinking about memory frequently over the past year simply because I want to improve my retention and recall of knowledge. (I admire the dedication of memory competitors but I am not interested in that aspect of the field myself.)
I have dipped into Dominic’s “How to Develop a Brilliant Memory” and Lynne Kelley’s (@LynneKelly) “memory craft” but haven’t read them cover to cover. I am currently using Anki to memorise a PAO variant on the Dominic system, just adding objects to a tweaked set of the people and actions in his book, really. I guess that I am about 80% complete on that, as I seldom make mistakes, but only a few of the 100 are at the stage of instantaneous recall.
However, today I have some questions about lukasa, which is of course covered in some detail in Lynne’s book (e.g. the description of her bird lukasa which starts on p.110). Basically, I aim to use a lukasa for memorising monarchs and, from the 1700s onward, prime ministers of Britain. If possible I also want to add major events such as wars. That should provide me with a timeline for the British Isles that runs like a backbone through its history.
Lynne mentions that flat boards are the most common form for a lukasa. I was lucky enough to find this old cupboard door in my shed in a pile of junk (see photos below). While it is tatty, it is also free, and I think the stains, scratches and other features will make locations on the board easier to recognise and differentiate. It’s a bit larger than I would have like, being 57.5cm (nearly 23 inches) wide and 47cm (nearly 19 inches) high, and is fairly heavy. I have washed the dirt off it and it is drying.
In terms of the encoding of information, for each monarch or PM I am thinking of a name, start date, end date, and house (e.g. Tudor) or political party (Tory, Whig, etc.). That’s four items of information. If we use Robert Walpole as an example, he was in office from 1721 to 1742, so if we omit the “17” that gives us 21 and 42, so I thought I could encode those as Ben Affleck (21) smearing on makeup (the action and object for David Bowie 42).
That still leaves me needing to encode the name of the person and the dynastic house or political party. Maybe I could take initials of the name, so that Robert Walpole becomes RW, which is 18 and 23, and encode that?
I’m not sure how to approach the party either. Suppose I use a small shell to encode Robert Walpole. Could I encode his political party by varying the position of the shell relative to a centreline, or perhaps by the object’s size, or colour? Or even type - shells for Tory, stones for Whigs, and so on. But how does that work with royal houses?
So that’s one problem. The other is the physical layout and organisation of a lukasa. In her book, Lynne briefly describes the more systematic approach she took to her memory board for the story of writing and gives a picture in figure 6.1.
With monarchs and PMs, you have a kind of overlapping timeline, so instinctively I think some kind of linear sequence would be most suitable. A loose spiral beginning at the centre of the board looks interesting, and that would probably make it easy to keep the sequence in mind.
Anyway, apologies for this rather rambling first post, but I’d be grateful for any pointers and advice, either general or specific.
DJ
memory-boards #lukasa
