MEMORIZING!!!!
All right, so I'm doing a bit of a different kind of post today. As I have served my mission, I have had many opportunities to use my memorizing skills for practical use. I Absolutely love to memorize, and it hasn't always been that way. I have been giving my spiel to many people that want to memorize better, and I figured now would be a good time to offer help and insights on how to make it funner and easier.
First off, We Are All Good At Memorizing. That's the first thing you have to learn. No one is worse or better at it. Memorizing is just programming your brain. Some of us are better at programming, but we all have a functioning brain capable of being programmed. You memorized your name, your birthday, your native language. Your brain can store info that is put into it the right way. So before I get into any techniques and all the "normal" topics associated with memorizing, I want to address the BRAIN!!!
Our brain doesn't know right from wrong, that's our heart's job. All our brain does is take what you give it. Ever learned someone's name wrong, and were thoroughly convinced you knew their name, only to find out later that you got it wrong in the first place? How hard was it to re-learn that name? When your brain learns something, it creates a synapse, kind of like a hard drive stores info, or like carving words onto a gold plate.... That wrong name got sunk deep into your synapses or onto the gold plate of your mind. In order to fix it, you have to reset your chisel and form a deeper groove than the last wrong one. The deeper the groove, the deeper the correction needs to be. Also, if the groove is shallow, you can move to a new flat spot and start a new groove that will overtake the old one, but if the first groove is pretty deep, you have to start the new one partially in the old one, then it becomes really hard to fix it, and the chisel wants to fall into the old groove.
So the next idea that helps us train our brain is the concept of "creating space." Your brain needs a place to put these bits of info. It's like making a folder on a computer or making an outline of what you are going to write on the plates. If you train your brain to look outside to another source for the info, it will learn to do that every time it needs that particular info. Let me illustrate. If' you're memorizing the books of the bible and you start listing them off; Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus...... then you can't remember. If you then look at the list to get the answer, your brain has just been taught that the Correct answer is Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, look at the list and see Numbers... Remember, it doesn't know what is right, just what you program. So the solution is to create space while you are learning. If you can't remember, try to search your mind hard, try to connect those synapses with the right info. It's in there somewhere. You read it before. You made the first scratch on the plate. If you still can't think of it, make a guess! Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,.....um....Watermelon. You know it's wrong, but now you made a place for the right answer. Getting to techniques, you can associate Watermelon with Numbers, which makes no sense at all, but now your brain has a place for the info and it knows not to look at anything to get it. You can then start drilling the correct info deeper and deeper.
This idea of brain training is the foundation of good memorizing. Techniques like associations, backwards and forwards, learning from the end first, assigning numbers, repetition, stories, rhymes, visuals, and so many others out there, are vital and wonderful if used properly. If used wrong though, you can drill bad grooves in your mind and really cause a mess of info that does you no good. You can literally teach yourself Not to remember something. The best strategy is to memorize the same thing in many different ways. If you program it correctly on many different sets of synapses, then when you go to search for the info you need, you will have more than one place to find the correct answer. If the association, the number, and the rhyme fails you, then the visual you made can bail you out. When you have many techniques, that's when speed and long term memorizing truly happens. Once you have it right, with no hick-ups, then it's time to repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat........ Make sure you have the groove and then make it as deep as you can.
Another concept that I want to address is fixing mistakes when you do program them in. It's hard to do it right the first time. As a musician, I like to improve my sight-reading skills so that I get it pretty close the first time and have fewer mistakes to fix. Rarely is it perfect the first time, but that is the goal. To fix a mistake, you have to isolate it. As I memorized "The Living Christ" document http://lds.org/library/display/0,4945,90-1-10-1,00.html I would read two sentences and then immediately try to repeat them back. You would be surprised how many times you can just repeat it pretty close. If you can't get it word for word, say the basic idea, make some space, and then fix the words one at a time. Practice over the hick-up spots over and over. The illustration with the Bible books again; If the hick-up lies between Leviticus and Numbers, say That over and over, so when you get to Leviticus, you have a flow into the right answer. There is a connection that hasn't been made yet between those two bits of info. Say Leviticus Numbers, Leviticus Numbers, Leviticus Numbers. Then go back a step, Exodus Leviticus Numbers, Exodus Leviticus Numbers.... With music, if you're playing along and you reach a spot you have to pause for every time, your brain thinks the song has a pause there. It doesn't know what is right, it knows what you've taught it and repeated over and over. To fix it, slow down that spot with the hick-up to a speed where the hick-up is gone. Then repeat it over and over til it's easy. Then speed it up slowly. Keep repeating over and over the right way. Make that groove deeper than the old one. Again the more times you play it the wrong way, the more times you have to play it the right way to over-compensate for the bad groove. That is why it's so much easier to get it right the first time before you drill it in wrong very deep. If necessary, do it extra slow the very first time so it's pretty free of mistakes. It'll then be easier to fix and speed up.
The last idea to go along with all of this is Sleep! Heard the phrase "sleep on it" before? There is so much wisdom in that. As you sleep the grooves you made all day sit in your mind and unwind. There is only so much your brain can store in one day. As you sleep on it, you'll actually have it deeper than when you went to bed. All the more reason to make sure you have it right before you sleep. It's better to do a little at a time correctly, than a whole bunch kind of scattered. When I did "The Living Christ" I'd do a paragraph a day, get it right, repeat all day, then sleep on it. I love to repeat one last time right as I'm falling asleep. The next day I would have it better than I left it. There's value in many small repeats, over trying to cram for hours at a time. The concept even applies to many times in a single day. Repeat, then put your mind somewhere else, then come back repeat again, and so on. Your brain is getting training at gathering the info from a totally different subject, which deepens the grooves even more.
I have many techniques that I use, many ideas that come to me, and many ways that I like to memorize, but they all boil down to understanding what is happening. Everyone can memorize. Just understand what is happening and how to do it right. Memorizing is fun and can be very useful.
I'll visit this subject more and maybe update it later, but for now, this'll do. Go try, have fun, God Bless!
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