Memories...

A few weeks ago, Mr. Happy approached me and asked how I would feel about taking a memory class.

Hmmm, I thought, is this going to be like the time he wanted to learn to sing off the internet...or take an improv class over the phone...or learn how to talk in foreign accents from a book? It turned out, No.

At the Oxbridge Society, Mr. Happy had been introduced to Lim Teck Hoe a medalist at the World Memory Championships and current Asia Memory Record Holder. Lim opened a school in Malaysia called Switch which teaches techniques for mental development. Among his students is Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad, Malaysia's longest serving Prime Minister.

It seemed...interesting. Mr. Happy is taking law classes and has to memorize thousands of case studies. He was looking for mental shortcuts. I was looking for a way to remember where I laid my keys.

We took three private classes with Lim and within the first hour we were already memorizing chains of information, numbers, and formulas.

It was remarkable. He could write a twenty digit number on the board. At first glance you'd say, "That's impossible to remember." After Lim taught us about memory hooks and pegs, it suddenly took us 10 minutes and we could recite the number forward, backward, and sideways without even thinking about it.

It was a game. And it was fun...because I was much better than Mr. Happy!

We utilized four main techniques - memory pegs (replacing numbers with words), linking, loci, and substitution. The concept is to change the abstract into something concrete. Suddenly your mind has something to latch on to and trigger a response.

It was pretty impressive, by our third class we could memorize the list of US Presidents, Kings & Queens of England, Bahasa Malay, even a bit of Chinese within minutes!  

The key to our memorization practice is repetition. So in order for us to retain all of our new information, we needed to revise it after one hour, one day, one week, one month, one quarter. I wish someone had taught this to me when I was a kid!

Of course all of our classes ended on a sweet note with delicious lunches. Lim definitely remembers the best restaurants in town!

Mr. Happy and I were very impressed with the course and the new skills we developed. We certainly won't forget it anytime soon!