# Zero to USAMC in 7.0? (months) - John L's Training Journal **URL:** \ **Category:** Memory Training Journals\ **Created:** [December 17, 2024, 11:11pm UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/zero-to-usamc-in-7-0-months-john-ls-training-journal/99040 "2024-12-17T23:11:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Goldfish](https://forum.artofmemory.com/user_avatar/forum.artofmemory.com/goldfish/32/30371_2.png) [@Goldfish](https://forum.artofmemory.com/u/Goldfish)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2025, 8:04pm UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/zero-to-usamc-in-7-0-months-john-ls-training-journal/99040/21 "2025-02-04T20:04:02Z")
good afternoon, February 4th! i did a cards run this morning that was kind of illuminating and i’d like to talk about it a bit while it’s still fresh-ish: ![image](https://forum.artofmemory.com/uploads/default/original/3X/f/a/fa4c4b9a1cc2b9b0d6aba042753d9978152be91c.png) not one of my better runs (45 cards in 10 minutes isn’t going to make me GMM???) but there are definitely improvement opportunities here: - my 6S action is “shooting” (using a sniper rifle) and my 7H is “gunning” (using a tommy gun). I didn’t mix them up in the final recall but definitely lost some time encoding. - Mixed up loci #14 and #15, they’re opposite sides of a street but I was already kind of rushing at that point. - Straight up forgot what the object for 6C is. been trying to remember it for the last twenty minutes, finally checked my list. it’s a “gem”? might want to work on that one. - Just way too slow overall and had to grab the last 4 to beat the timer, but i have plenty of time to fix that. just gotta keep working. Having fun, getting better, open to suggestions. seeya soon! ---
**Author:** ![TheHumanTim](https://forum.artofmemory.com/user_avatar/forum.artofmemory.com/thehumantim/32/17301_2.png) [@TheHumanTim](https://forum.artofmemory.com/u/TheHumanTim)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2025, 12:26am UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/zero-to-usamc-in-7-0-months-john-ls-training-journal/99040/22 "2025-02-05T00:26:40Z")
First, good job pushing yourself with cards! It can be frustrating and challenging especially in the beginning and sometimes people don’t want to experience that frustration so they procrastinate. I was one of those people. Some thoughts on your improvement process: It’s going to take time to lock in each of the associations independently to their cards. This is the toughest part and the thing that takes the most time up front. Fortunately, since you’ve based all the elements on major, you’re ahead of the game when it comes to being able to directly read your cards as each element type. Cards inherently has an extra translation to master compared to numbers. You have to get fluent with the suit/sound conversion. You also need to get fluent at recognizing structural differences if there are any with your picture cards. I don’t recall you mentioning how you mapped each card to it’s sounds, but I assume that for the Jack Queen King you have either different sounds for them beyond the number associations or you’re inverting how you read them. It takes time for those minor adjustments to become second nature. Until it does, your focus will be compromised every time you have to pause and actively translate. Compare this to images and words and cards are even harder still because the images/words are provided for you. You just need to identify some kind of link. This is ok though. Its part of the training process. The other challenge you’ve identified is stamina and retention of longer runs. Your full deck attempts require you to be actively and intentionally encoding 52 elements. This is comparable to doing an images event with 52 images, or a numbers run with 104 numbers, but actually quite a bit more difficult because you have to take those extra active conversion steps with suits and picture card structures. So its not surprising that your cards pace is much slower than other events. You noted an important challenge with your “shooting” and “gunning” actions. If elements are too similar, it can be bad. Its ok to abandon an element that isn’t working in favor of a new one. Your brain will adapt to overwriting the association fairly quickly and it can better than trying to force a difficult one. Maybe try an alternate option, like “sh\*tting” or “caning”? Same goes for an image that is tough to recall like “gem.” Ditch it if it doesnt feel right. Is there a different word that you find yourself always saying when the 6 ♣ object comes up during recognition practice? If so, try going with it. Maybe “jam” or “gym” or “chum” would be a better fit? Its ok to adjust your loci as well. I had a palace that I used for cards where I always seemed to either skip or swap a certain loci (bathroom sink). I’d get to the end of the palace and have a scene’s worth of cards left and go “oh crap. what did I miss?” and it totally bricked the attempt. So I took out that location and added one on to the end. Problem solved. Be flexible if needed with those palaces and practice them for recognition and navigation just like with the card images. You’ll need to be able to basically “blink” between each loci instantly in order to get yourself under competition pace. And every hesitation when navigating robs focus and time from scene building. Bottom line, keep at it! I’m excited to watch your improvement with this discipline!! ---
**Author:** ![Goldfish](https://forum.artofmemory.com/user_avatar/forum.artofmemory.com/goldfish/32/30371_2.png) [@Goldfish](https://forum.artofmemory.com/u/Goldfish)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2025, 4:37pm UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/zero-to-usamc-in-7-0-months-john-ls-training-journal/99040/23 "2025-02-05T16:37:35Z")
good morning, february 5th! posting at least one try a day to keep myself motivated and accountable, got myself with the old too-similar adjacent-loci switch again today ![image](https://forum.artofmemory.com/uploads/default/original/3X/7/9/79a88ab045e4d5658b29c772ac551ae1ea5b7683.png) 6S continues to cause problems but i’ve changed it, just getting used to the new one. _shakes fist_ anyway, improving and having fun, seeya tomorrow! ---
**Author:** ![Goldfish](https://forum.artofmemory.com/user_avatar/forum.artofmemory.com/goldfish/32/30371_2.png) [@Goldfish](https://forum.artofmemory.com/u/Goldfish)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2025, 11:49pm UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/zero-to-usamc-in-7-0-months-john-ls-training-journal/99040/24 "2025-02-07T23:49:09Z")
good afternoon, february 7th (oops, gotta pay my utilities) ![image](https://forum.artofmemory.com/uploads/default/original/3X/b/1/b11350adb16b87c9b95997d26263199e5221e43c.png) lol, lmao. encoding mistake, gotta spend more time in anki. we’re making progress tho. getting more confident and faster, looking forward to getting some real grind time in this weekend. seeya soon! edit: see i can do it sometimes i promise lol ![image](https://forum.artofmemory.com/uploads/default/original/3X/6/a/6a265b8631c62976309a7535f838fdb029ea682f.png) ---
**Author:** ![Goldfish](https://forum.artofmemory.com/user_avatar/forum.artofmemory.com/goldfish/32/30371_2.png) [@Goldfish](https://forum.artofmemory.com/u/Goldfish)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2025, 12:21am UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/zero-to-usamc-in-7-0-months-john-ls-training-journal/99040/25 "2025-02-09T00:21:58Z")
good afternoon, February 8th! couple new personal bests on ML on this productive Saturday: ![image](https://forum.artofmemory.com/uploads/default/original/3X/5/a/5ab136d8173ca8322bd6b2d19692d74c6d639b01.jpeg) ![image](https://forum.artofmemory.com/uploads/default/original/3X/8/1/81d82caf750f03216001b2470b48389edf926139.png) the grind continues! i need to make some more palaces for cards given how often i’m practicing. that’s tomorrow’s to-do. okay seeya then! ---
**Author:** ![Goldfish](https://forum.artofmemory.com/user_avatar/forum.artofmemory.com/goldfish/32/30371_2.png) [@Goldfish](https://forum.artofmemory.com/u/Goldfish)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2025, 12:36am UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/zero-to-usamc-in-7-0-months-john-ls-training-journal/99040/26 "2025-02-20T00:36:05Z")
good afternoon, february 19th! Just played my first ML match, SUPER super fun. Got the following scores: Names: 14 (ick) Images: 55s (played this one safe) Words: 25 (new best!!) Int names: 13 (matches my best) Cards: 13 (cards are hard!) Feel like it’s pretty clear where i need to spend my time focusing (everywhere but images, lol.) Really loving the competition, looking forward to working on names a bit more. As much as it’s been difficult for Words to click, there’s definitely an art to it that the other disciplines don’t have (or maybe i’ve given myself ML Words Stockholm Syndrome by watching too many @Bigdonnyv videos. Either way…) I think I’m going to work on cards a lot more heavily over the next few weeks, so i’ll probably post in here about my obstacles as I run into them, but everything’s coming up milhouse! seeya soon ---
**Author:** ![Bigdonnyv](https://forum.artofmemory.com/user_avatar/forum.artofmemory.com/bigdonnyv/32/15039_2.png) [@Bigdonnyv](https://forum.artofmemory.com/u/Bigdonnyv)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2025, 1:05am UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/zero-to-usamc-in-7-0-months-john-ls-training-journal/99040/27 "2025-02-20T01:05:14Z")
And you use the 4 colour deck! Wow 🕶. Congrats on the Words pr! Keep going. It feels like yesterday that I was battling to hit 25 in a minute. Youre right, words are a little different than the other events. In the sense, that they are much cooler. Just throw 2 per loci in there and create. No systems, just creating. ---
**Author:** ![Goldfish](https://forum.artofmemory.com/user_avatar/forum.artofmemory.com/goldfish/32/30371_2.png) [@Goldfish](https://forum.artofmemory.com/u/Goldfish)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2025, 5:58pm UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/zero-to-usamc-in-7-0-months-john-ls-training-journal/99040/28 "2025-03-07T17:58:56Z")
Good morning, March 7th! (sheesh, March?) Anyhow, as I mentioned in the last couple posts I spent a while working on palaces and encoding, and now I’ve got a bit of a break from the busy time at work, so I’m looking forward to using the next couple weeks to make big gains. Here are my current bests in all ML events: Cards: 18 Words: 29 Images: 30 in 29.0s Int. Names: 13 Names: 19 Numbers: 37 here’s where I would like my personal records to be two weeks from now (March 7th): Cards: 30 Words: 38 Images: 30 in 24.0s Int. Names: 20 Names: 25 Numbers: 55 I know these are some big jumps, and I don’t expect to meet every single target. But I think I’ve done the back-end work to start seeing significant improvement. Numbers might lag behind because I’ve been focusing a lot more on practicing my Cards PAO more than my 00-99 PAO. But that’s fine! i’ll live. I think I’m going to need a breakthrough in numbers for things to start clicking. We’ll see. Anyhow, still having a lot of fun with improving, I’m glad i found this hobby! seeya at some point before or on 21 March. > [@Bigdonnyv](#): > > And you use the 4 colour deck! Wow 🕶. Congrats on the Words pr! Keep going. It feels like yesterday that I was battling to hit 25 in a minute. > > Youre right, words are a little different than the other events. In the sense, that they are much cooler. > > Just throw 2 per loci in there and create. No systems, just creating. Thank you! words is slowly starting to click. I’m mostly struggling (shockingly) with words that aren’t easy to represent visually (“yeah sure let me just put DECLARATION THOROUGH at a locus”) but the learning has been really enjoyable. editing since i don’t want to make a second post today: worked a lot on names and words today. Improved my best names to 21! chugging along, but i’m aiming for 4 more than that by two weeks from now. Managed 28-29 words a few times in a row but couldn’t crack thirty. It’s nice to get back to making progress, but now all my palaces are full of words. seeya tomorrow! ---
**Author:** ![Goldfish](https://forum.artofmemory.com/user_avatar/forum.artofmemory.com/goldfish/32/30371_2.png) [@Goldfish](https://forum.artofmemory.com/u/Goldfish)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2025, 9:37pm UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/zero-to-usamc-in-7-0-months-john-ls-training-journal/99040/29 "2025-04-01T21:37:02Z")
well, clearly i missed the goals i set for two weeks ago, lol. but i also was concerned that for whatever reason USAMC wasn’t happening this year, but they finally updated the site! one of my big worries was that the qualifiers or final would be on dates that I wasn’t available. But it looks like they’re both on dates that will work for me, so it’s time to put the pedal down and start grinding seriously. These were my targets when I made this thread: - Cards: 52 in 2:30 - Images: 30 in 0:45s - Names: 30 in 1:30 - Numbers: 80 in 0:55 - Words: 30 in 1:30 (it’s fifty words, not thirty, lol. this was pointed out to me politely via DM, thank you.) Here’s where my extremely consistent one-minute scores are: - Cards: 13-15 - Images: 30 in 40-45s - Names: 15-16 - Numbers: 35 - Words: 25-26 They’ve all improved a decent bit, but not at the speed I need them to. Cards and numbers are really kicking my butt and it’s mostly because PAO annoys me and i don’t practice it enough. But that’s where I need to focus, along with names. I’m comfortable with where Images is, though I’ll continue to improve it. Words is fun enough that I know i’ll improve over time there without too much conscious focus. So, knowing that I won’t have to practice Lumosity or anything for this year I can dial in and really work on these events. I think my goals upthread were actually pretty close, but now I can adjust them a little as I close out my first ML season and figure out what’s realistic. Here are the scores I would be disappointed to fall short of on game day (with a best of 2 attempts): Cards: 2:15 Images: 0:35 Names: 1:10 (i don’t see myself getting a 30/30 in a minute in the next few months, but I expect to be close) Numbers: 1:40 (higher than I’d like, but trying to be realistic) Words: 1:15 (i feel like I’m close to a breakthrough with words, we’ll see) This is April 1, which means I have effectively 3 months to get this good. I’m planning to try to hit the following targets over the next 13 weeks | Week | Cards | Images | Names | Numbers | Words | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | **1 (Apr 1–7)** | 6:45 ❌ | 0:48✅ | 3:15❌ | 4:15❌ | 2:30❌ | | **2 (Apr 8–14)** | 6:00 | 0:46 | 3:00 | 4:00 | 2:20 | | **3 (Apr 15–21)** | 5:30 | 0:45 | 2:45 | 3:45 | 2:10 | | **4 (Apr 22–28)** | 5:15 | 0:44 | 2:30 | 3:30 | 2:00 | | **5 (Apr 29–May 5)** | 4:45 | 0:43 | 2:15 | 3:15 | 1:50 | | **6 (May 6–12)** | 4:15 | 0:42 | 2:00 | 3:00 | 1:40 | | **7 (May 13–19)** | 3:45 | 0:41 | 1:45 | 2:45 | 1:35 | | **8 (May 20–26)** | 3:15 | 0:40 | 1:30 | 2:30 | 1:30 | | **9 (May 27–Jun 2)** | 2:45 | 0:38 | 1:20 | 2:00 | 1:25 | | **10 (Jun 3–9)** | 2:30 | 0:37 | 1:15 | 1:55 | 1:20 | | **11 (Jun 10–16)** | 2:25 | 0:36 | 1:12 | 1:50 | 1:18 | | **12 (Jun 17–23)** | 2:20 | 0:35 | 1:10 | 1:45 | 1:17 | | **13 (Jun 24–30)** | 2:15 | 0:35 | 1:10 | 1:40 | 1:15 | Let’s see how this goes! ---
**Author:** ![TheHumanTim](https://forum.artofmemory.com/user_avatar/forum.artofmemory.com/thehumantim/32/17301_2.png) [@TheHumanTim](https://forum.artofmemory.com/u/TheHumanTim)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2025, 2:06pm UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/zero-to-usamc-in-7-0-months-john-ls-training-journal/99040/30 "2025-04-02T14:06:49Z")
> [@Goldfish](#): > > PAO annoys me This is good to recognize. You don’t HAVE to structure it this way. It should be fun and inspiring to work with these systems, not make you annoyed or dread their events. Is there a specific aspect of it that you don’t like? You can always just use two of those elements in your scenes and drop the annoying part… Person/Object: without a specific action required you can have the person use or interact with the object in whatever way you want! Person/Action: have the action affect the location or imagine it affecting you as a first-person participant in the scene. Use an incidental object in your scene that makes sense for the action without worrying about it needing to encode information. I love these two approaches because it makes the scenes feel more natural, but the result is still just as absurd and memorable. No forcing of an action with an object that really doesnt fit that action. Action/Object: imagine yourself performing the action on/with the object or maybe imagine anthropomorphizing the location and it coming alive as the “person” that does it. You could also designate people who live at eac location and have them do the AO. This way they are just part of the palace features. (Don’t like this as much as PO or PA, since there’s still that forced connection of action and object, but it could work for some people.) You could also try working with adjectives and play around with an “adjective/person” or “adjective/object” scene structure. You’d have things like “DeaD kNighT” or “FaT CuP” to represent your cards, but you could animate and interact with them in any way you want. (Downside is this would require learning 100 new associations and drilling them to fluency. If you’re feeling pressed for time, this may not be ideal at the moment.) For these approaches, you’d need to expand your palaces for cards to 26 loci, and to 20 loci for numbers, but if you’re fluent with palaces, it could actually be easier and faster to just make more scenes that are simpler than keep trying to slog through the scene combinations you’re forced to work with when using PAO. Your goals of a deck in 135 seconds and 80 digits in 100 seconds means just about 5 seconds per scene if you go with two elements per scene. I don’t think thats unrealistic. And unless you try to go with adjectives, there wouldnt be anything new to learn so you wouldn’t have a recognition speed setback. Might be worth trying for a few days. ---
**Author:** ![Goldfish](https://forum.artofmemory.com/user_avatar/forum.artofmemory.com/goldfish/32/30371_2.png) [@Goldfish](https://forum.artofmemory.com/u/Goldfish)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 10:57pm UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/zero-to-usamc-in-7-0-months-john-ls-training-journal/99040/31 "2025-04-03T22:57:48Z")
Thanks for the tips! I’ve been trying out both PA and PO a bit today and the creation of the images is much easier. It certainly _feels_ very slow at first, but the consistency is much better already. > [@TheHumanTim](#): > > For these approaches, you’d need to expand your palaces for cards to 26 loci, and to 20 loci for numbers, but if you’re fluent with palaces, it could actually be easier and faster to just make more scenes that are simpler than keep trying to slog through the scene combinations you’re forced to work with when using PAO. Yeah, extending them to additional loci has been a little struggle but not too bad. the end of one of my previous palaces is a whole taco bell now. whatever. it’s fine! lol. I’m not sure if I’m going to end up doing PA or PO (or maybe this will help me figure out PAO) but they’re both working pretty well. I messed with adjectives a bit but it feels like trying to create a 2-card system or something equally arcane. Managed to get a 32 words run today, it’s slowly starting to click but i’m still feeling some words are just straight up impossible lol. But i’m also going too fast. I’ll get to a locus and be like “okay, ‘convertible’ and ‘research’. yeah, maybe like there’s a research report with a convertible on it an–” and then i move on because i’m trying to make time or whatever and in recall I’m just neeeeeeever getting it. Now that the timeframe for all this is getting shorter I really can’t waste much more time struggling with card/number recall so my plan for the week (along with reaching the listed targets) is to figure out if i want to go PA or PO for now and drill those more in anki, just trying to eliminate as much recognition/encoding time as possible on a per-card basis. we’ll see! nice to be back on the grind. ---
**Author:** ![Goldfish](https://forum.artofmemory.com/user_avatar/forum.artofmemory.com/goldfish/32/30371_2.png) [@Goldfish](https://forum.artofmemory.com/u/Goldfish)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2025, 9:12pm UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/zero-to-usamc-in-7-0-months-john-ls-training-journal/99040/32 "2025-04-07T21:12:58Z")
okay! as this is the end of “week 1”, i’ve gone through and made attempts at the listed times. Here are my attempts: Cards: 48 in 5:20, 44 in 6:45. Still tripping up on jacks and queens. Images: 30 in 47.97, DNF Names: 26 in 3:15, 28 in 3:15 (two mis-types, this should have been 30) Numbers: 40 in 4:15, DNF Words: 44 in 2:30, 44 in 2:30 Missed my targets for everything but images. But that’s fine! I was pretty close on names, cards, and words. Numbers is… tough. I’ve moved to PA for cards and will probably do the same for numbers, there are just… twice as many two-digit numbers as there are cards. Obviously, lol. Plan for the week: 1. Drill 2-digit PA 2. Drill 2-digit PA some more. 3. Practice everything else, especially names. I’m still feeling like I make big leaps forward when I practice, so I think that means I’m not practicing enough. Easy enough to fix. I’m confident I can meet next week’s targets (maybe apart from numbers) if I work hard enough this week. We’ll see! ---
**Author:** ![TheHumanTim](https://forum.artofmemory.com/user_avatar/forum.artofmemory.com/thehumantim/32/17301_2.png) [@TheHumanTim](https://forum.artofmemory.com/u/TheHumanTim)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2025, 10:09pm UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/zero-to-usamc-in-7-0-months-john-ls-training-journal/99040/33 "2025-04-07T22:09:51Z")
48 and 44 cards out of 52 is good. Time to push your speed a bit. Don’t wait until you 100% a given time to go faster. This was something I didnt learn until late in my quest for a sub-60 time. I always waited until I could get a perfect recall before pushing it. Don’t make my mistake. Especially since you have a hard deadline you’re trying to hit. Set the timer for 5 minutes and go for it. It will seem rushed the first couple times and your accuracy will drop to probably in the low 30’s at first, but very quickly your brain will get used to that speed and you’ll see more 45+ correct results. Once that happens, push it another 30 seconds or so back. KEEP PUSHING THE PACE. Trust your brain to catch up. Then in a couple weeks, 5:20, 5 minutes will feel like a walk in the park. ---
**Author:** ![Bigdonnyv](https://forum.artofmemory.com/user_avatar/forum.artofmemory.com/bigdonnyv/32/15039_2.png) [@Bigdonnyv](https://forum.artofmemory.com/u/Bigdonnyv)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2025, 10:22pm UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/zero-to-usamc-in-7-0-months-john-ls-training-journal/99040/34 "2025-04-07T22:22:14Z")
That chart wow… too much thinking. Just send it. ---
**Author:** ![Goldfish](https://forum.artofmemory.com/user_avatar/forum.artofmemory.com/goldfish/32/30371_2.png) [@Goldfish](https://forum.artofmemory.com/u/Goldfish)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2025, 10:26pm UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/zero-to-usamc-in-7-0-months-john-ls-training-journal/99040/35 "2025-04-17T22:26:29Z")
thanks for the advice! yeah, my instinct is definitely to do these things as slowly and methodically as possible, but it does feel like i’m letting perfect be the enemy of good or whatever anyway, i’ve been continuing to lower the times as recommended, managed a 4:39 52/52 cards offline so the right memorization time for me to continue improving is probably under 4 minutes from here. This is the best words run I’ve had lately – lots of mistakes, but stuff like “new” for “newer”, “rooster”/“chicken”, etc constituted most of of my errors. likely will just require slightly better encoding or recall, not sure which exactly. it’ll come with time and effort. ![image](https://forum.artofmemory.com/uploads/default/original/3X/a/8/a8a0f499b90a5e4449a9628360f4c00307ffe7d8.png) I haven’t spent much time at all on images, which i think is fine. Numbers is still really difficult and I’ve given myself until the end of April to figure it out with 00-99 PA before i start looking into alternate strategies. I know it’ll click at some point, as the other events all have (even cards!) but numbers are a mess. Names is going pretty well. alright! seeya soon. ---
**Author:** ![TheHumanTim](https://forum.artofmemory.com/user_avatar/forum.artofmemory.com/thehumantim/32/17301_2.png) [@TheHumanTim](https://forum.artofmemory.com/u/TheHumanTim)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2025, 11:40pm UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/zero-to-usamc-in-7-0-months-john-ls-training-journal/99040/36 "2025-04-17T23:40:43Z")
Nice job! Its a little bit odd that numbers are tougher than cards. Are you using the same word list for cards and numbers? Usually if people do, especially if using Major, the numbers side is easier because it is a more directly readable if you’re fluent with the number to sound translations. ---
**Author:** ![Goldfish](https://forum.artofmemory.com/user_avatar/forum.artofmemory.com/goldfish/32/30371_2.png) [@Goldfish](https://forum.artofmemory.com/u/Goldfish)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2025, 5:55pm UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/zero-to-usamc-in-7-0-months-john-ls-training-journal/99040/37 "2025-04-20T17:55:06Z")
> Nice job! Its a little bit odd that numbers are tougher than cards. Are you using the same word list for cards and numbers? thank you! and yeah, i’ve got 52 duplicates between the lists. I find that recognizing a number that i have a card for goes much faster, which I think mostly means I haven’t drilled 00-99 PAO flashcards enough, though at this point i’m starting to think i might just be doing it the wrong way. hmm. much to think about. ![image](https://forum.artofmemory.com/uploads/default/original/3X/f/f/ffab0388911479f9cc832af51115143bf02f68e6.png) Anyhow, continuing to push cards down using PA, I’m optimistic I could get a 52/52 in 5:00 if necessary this week, but still a long way to go. seeya soon! I’m hoping to have a words breakthrough soon. (edit: images continues to be the one discipline that makes sense to me, thank you for always being there, based images) ![image](https://forum.artofmemory.com/uploads/default/original/3X/3/c/3c66a4460ee16352cd8cf434be6b9170e89b6db1.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![Goldfish](https://forum.artofmemory.com/user_avatar/forum.artofmemory.com/goldfish/32/30371_2.png) [@Goldfish](https://forum.artofmemory.com/u/Goldfish)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2025, 5:48pm UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/zero-to-usamc-in-7-0-months-john-ls-training-journal/99040/38 "2025-04-24T17:48:31Z")
Not much interesting news. Drill, practice, go faster, it is what it is. Down to three minutes for cards (with a handful of mistakes, but i’ll build consistency after speed.) Happy Thursday! [![image](https://forum.artofmemory.com/uploads/default/original/3X/0/c/0c8626ba8e874f7ce9bb047e38958830c1fb5501.png) ](https://forum.artofmemory.com/uploads/default/original/3X/0/c/0c8626ba8e874f7ce9bb047e38958830c1fb5501.png) edited to add: ![image](https://forum.artofmemory.com/uploads/default/original/3X/4/6/468a3ff8b53030a1d5882ac01c7c1412e5692bd2.png) Finally got 21 cards in a minute, sheesh. took long enough. Next level is…26? That actually doesn’t seem that bad. I’m definitely starting to figure out the little tricks that work for me. The grind continues! ---
**Author:** ![TheHumanTim](https://forum.artofmemory.com/user_avatar/forum.artofmemory.com/thehumantim/32/17301_2.png) [@TheHumanTim](https://forum.artofmemory.com/u/TheHumanTim)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2025, 5:54pm UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/zero-to-usamc-in-7-0-months-john-ls-training-journal/99040/39 "2025-04-24T17:54:09Z")
Heck yeah. 47 is great, now go faster! Try for 150 seconds or even 2 minutes flat. You can handle it! Then just for fun do one run at a 5 minute pace and look at how much progress you’ve made and how easy that speed feels now. ---
**Author:** ![Goldfish](https://forum.artofmemory.com/user_avatar/forum.artofmemory.com/goldfish/32/30371_2.png) [@Goldfish](https://forum.artofmemory.com/u/Goldfish)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2025, 9:26pm UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/zero-to-usamc-in-7-0-months-john-ls-training-journal/99040/40 "2025-04-30T21:26:22Z")
won my first match in the slam qualifiers (barely! went 0-3 on cards & numbers, but held on.) speaking of the old cards, how about this one??? hot dog! the grind continues, seeya soon! ![image](https://forum.artofmemory.com/uploads/default/original/3X/e/a/ea076e31377b6906d617687ae4a90c0c6b2a337d.png) [Previous page](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/zero-to-usamc-in-7-0-months-john-ls-training-journal/99040.md?page=1) [Next page](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/zero-to-usamc-in-7-0-months-john-ls-training-journal/99040.md?page=3)