Learning Adventure

Adventures 78 – 81 ~ Memory Feat [Days 3 – 6]

/ intrepidjane

I’ve been away with work for the past couple of days, so this post is a wee “catch-up” on all my memory palace news! I’ve spent 2-3 minutes every day for the last 6 days building and extending a memory palace for the purpose of memorising the periodic table of elements.

You can see what happened on Day 3 here , on Day 4 here and on Day 5 here 🙂 .

Over the course of the last 6 days, I’ve spent about 20 minutes in total building my palace and (so far!) there seems to be very little effort required in terms of “committing” anything to memory. If you want to try this technique, my top tips would be :

1. Know the layout of your palace inside-out (I’m using my own house).

2. Create exceptionally memorable images.

3. Be  fully present while you are decorating your palace (I actually think that this is the key to this whole technique!)

Here’s what happened today :

I am just going outside and may be some time 🙂 .

JT

Adventure 77 ~ Memory Feat [Day 2]

/ intrepidjane

I am really getting the hang of this whole memory palace thing ~ I’m genuinely shocked at how easy it is to remember things and how rapidly things can be memorised! It seems that all you need is sufficient imagination to create a memorable enough picture.

Today I learned the next 13 elements on the periodic table and put that learning together with yesterday’s. In the video you’ll see me recite the first 23 elements of the table and you might notice something really interesting. If you know anything about NLP eye accessing, you might expect my eyes to move so that they can go and “look for” what I’m remembering. When I watched the video back, I was very surprised that my eyes didn’t move at all : they seem to be staring ahead.

I am pretty certain that this is to do with the spatial memory aspect of this technique. That is, the rooms in my home are so familiar to me (and I’m anchoring images to places in rooms in my home) that I do not need to go and look for the place which holds the information. How cool is that? It’s a really “quick access”.

As my eyes are staring straight ahead, I am just seeing all the locations in my house in the order in which I anchored images. It’s like a conveyor belt of elements!

I am out of circulation for the next couple of days but I’ll still be recording videos and I’ll bring you up-to-date with my memory palace on Saturday. Over the coming days, I’ll be gradually increasing the number of new elements I learn : this could get exciting 🙂 .

I am just going outside and may be some time.

JT

Adventure 76 ~ Memory Feat [Day 1]

/ intrepidjane

periodic tableToday marks the start of a new series of adventures! You’ll remember that at the end of my Space Odyssey, I decided that I wanted to increase both my imaginative capacity and my creative thinking ability. Chess has helped me to think “a couple of moves ahead” and entertain several possibilities all at the same time.

Today I’m moving into an adventure which will encourage me to visualise creatively and to remember huge amounts of information. I’m going to use an ancient method called the memory palace technique  to memorise the periodic table of elements over a period of days. I’m fascinated by this technique which links visual and spatial memory ~ I particularly like the conclusions which Josh Foer draws in his TED talk about feats of memory.

What I got from his talk was the following ~  by engaging more deeply with that which we aim to remember, we become more present to it. The more frequently we engage with the world around us in this way, the more present we become to life :  we begin to see life in its richness and it becomes more memorable. The more present we are to life, the more “memory-able” we become. This all ties in beautifully with what I’m getting out of my 365-day adventure project in terms of presence and connection, so I’m really looking forward to this next adventure series 🙂 .

In today’s video, I explain how to build a memory palace and I memorise the first 10 elements.

I am just going outside and may be some time 🙂 .

JT

Adventure 75 ~ Learning To Play Chess [Day 7]

/ intrepidjane

Well, the big game has happened. I struck it lucky and got to play with the white pieces this time. Having studied some classic openings, I decided to throw my son off the scent by using a closed game opening.

The game lasted 1 hour and 20 minutes. You can see the final state of play on the image below today’s video. Watch the video to find out more 🙂 .

chess finalI am just going outside and may be some time 🙂 .

JT

Adventure 74 ~ Learning To Play Chess [Day 6]

/ intrepidjane

Today’s the day : I’m playing a full game of chess against my son and will be putting everything I have learned over the past 6 days into action!

In today’s video, I talk about my experiences of employing one of the opening move sequences I described yesterday and I share details of a move which everyone should know (apparently 🙂 ) and which features in most games ~ especially if  a player wants to keep his/her king safe.

The match is tonight and I’ll report back tomorrow 🙂 .

I am just going outside and may be some time.

JT

Adventure 73 ~ Learning To Play Chess [Day 5]

/ intrepidjane

Today I share my experiences of speed chess (in the game I played, each player had a total allocation of 5 minutes) and learn my first 4 openings (strict combinations of moves).

I am just going outside and may be some time 🙂 .

JT

Adventure 72 ~ Learning To Play Chess [Day 4]

/ intrepidjane

Now I’m starting to get quite excited about chess! Last night I played my first full game ~ you can see how it ended in the image below today’s video (I am playing with the “black” pieces).

It’s only a few short days before “the big match” on Saturday, so I’m still taking the opportunity to learn some top tips from the rich treasure trove that is YouTube. Today I’m learning about the 3 types of opening moves.

Find out how I got on last night here :

full game of chess

I am just going outside and may be some time 🙂 .

JT

Adventure 71 ~ Learning To Play Chess [Day 3]

/ intrepidjane

Last night saw the second 15-minute burst of chess with my son. Last night I applied what I’d learned yesterday. Last night a massacre took place (you can probably work out which side took the hit from the “state of play” image below today’s video!)

Today I found this YouTube video about opening moves really helpful. It makes sense and I think it will be useful for “The Big Game” which is planned for saturday!

game 2

I am just going outside and may be some time 🙂 .

JT

Adventure 70 ~ Learning To Play Chess [Day 2]

/ intrepidjane

chessLast night I played my first game of chess with my son. We played for 15 minutes and the image shows how well it went for me : I am “white” – and I’ve already lost a knight!

I’m hoping for some improvement tonight, having watched a really helpful YouTube video. Now I know a key strategic principle which I should avoid violating at all costs. (I also stumbled across the term “castling” in this video. Further investigation reveals this to be even more complicated than the off-side rule in football, so I don’t think I’m going to take that move any further at the moment!)

I’ll be playing again tonight and I’ll be keeping my top tip to myself to until after we’ve gone head-to-head 🙂 . I wonder if he’ll notice any difference …..

I am just going outside and may be some time.

JT

Adventure 69 ~ Learning To Play Chess

/ intrepidjane

My Space Odyssey has encouraged me to expand my imagination and grow my creative thinking. To support this development in my thinking, I’ve decided to learn to play chess! There seems to be a whole heap of benefits associated with playing this game and, even though my impression of chess is that it might be quite complicated, I am looking forward to squeezing my head through another wormhole 🙂 .

Today I started out by learning the basic moves from this short YouTube video. Over the coming days I’ll be watching more video tutorials and playing too.

I am just going outside and may be some time.

JT