# Help with my speed of memo



## oneshot (Feb 10, 2017)

Is anyone willing to explain EXACTLY what is going on in your head as you memo? Are you only saying the word for the letter pair once, making an image, then moving on. Do you review after each letter pair, or once after finishing edges and once after corners? 

I would love if someone would make a video of them memo'ing out loud on video so I can "hear" what you're thinking while you memo. It would be interesting to hear the differences between memo times of like 2 minutes vs. 1 minute vs. 30 seconds of memo.

If any of that makes sense.

Thanks!


----------



## faisaleo (Feb 11, 2017)

Hi. I memo in 2 minutes. I know that I am slow. However, I can explain my memo process. I find my pair. I make a word. I form an image. I keep it there as I find my next pair, for which I find its word and image. I concatenate the images so that they form 1 image. etc. This way I have every thing stored. The reason I take 2 minutes is because I take 10 seconds for each word. Does this help?

Another thing: I think that it is best not to review your memo because If you make good memo then you don't even need to review it and you just keep the image in your head. I am guilty of reviewing memo because my images aren't good enough. If I am to find good images, I would have to spend 30 seconds on each pair, which is too much. That is why I am learning letter pairs, so that for each of the 576 letter pairs, I know a word that will work well


----------



## NewCuber000 (Feb 16, 2017)

faisaleo said:


> Hi. I memo in 2 minutes. I know that I am slow. However, I can explain my memo process. I find my pair. I make a word. I form an image. I keep it there as I find my next pair, for which I find its word and image. I concatenate the images so that they form 1 image. etc. This way I have every thing stored. The reason I take 2 minutes is because I take 10 seconds for each word. Does this help?
> 
> Another thing: I think that it is best not to review your memo because If you make good memo then you don't even need to review it and you just keep the image in your head. I am guilty of reviewing memo because my images aren't good enough. If I am to find good images, I would have to spend 30 seconds on each pair, which is too much. That is why I am learning letter pairs, so that for each of the 576 letter pairs, I know a word that will work well



I'm slow too, 2:30ish memo, but I only learned a week ago. I'm improving very quickly though and I have a good grasp on memo. I think it should be noted that doing images for both corners AND edges would be pretty redundant. What I do is I make a single image for all my corner letter pairs for long term memorizatuon, then I memo my edges using audio (short "words" or "sounds" for all of my letter pairs, sometimes pairing them up when I read them in my head, like Fad So, Pi Ax, etc or something), then I excecute edges while that's in my head, then excecuting corners with the image at the end. I learned this from Noah's video series, which is like 2 hours long but it tells you everything you need to know, really.


----------



## G2013 (Feb 16, 2017)

I memo in about 17 seconds, today in sub15 for some reason xD

I memo corners first, and then edges.
What I used to do is rush on corners' memo, then tried to stick that short-term memo into long term by placing it into a room like I would do in MultiBLD or BigBLD. Afterwards, I rushed on edges' memo, and I just practiced until I could recall it entirely without pausing.

Now, I just rush on corners' memo a bit slower than on edges' memo, and try to place it on a room too. But I don't memo quick THEN place it as I used to (what I did is like I'm 'converting' an already memorized memo into medium-long-term). I might do it the old way if the corners' memo is too long or something.

So yeah, what I do step by step is:

1) Uncover the cube and find my orientation (yellow on top blue on front)
2) Look at my buffer and memo corners quickly while placing them on a room
3) Memo edges super quickly, bring the blindfold down (how do you say that?) and begin executing at lightspeed xD
4) Before I finish executing the last letter pair, I begin recalling my corners' memo (seldom it takes me a couple of seconds :/ shouldn't be so)
5) Right after I finish edges, I execute corners.
6) Parities if any, stop the timer.
7) Take my BLD off 

I average around 50 seconds (I have to improve my execution lol).

Should you have any questions just ask me!


----------



## Jacck (Feb 17, 2017)

G2013 said:


> 3) Memo edges super quickly, bring the blindfold down *(how do you say that?)* and begin executing at lightspeed xD


Well, I can not help with the memo (reading this posts I realized that I normally don't memo images but the little story for it - could be the reason, why I am so slow, but I really have difficulties in memoing or imagining a picture. Will have to think about that).
But I can help G2013, look what you can read in the Regulations in Article B, Blindfolded Solving:

B4) Blindfolded phase:
B4a) The competitor *dons* the blindfold to start the blindfolded phase.
B4b) The competitor must not apply moves to the puzzle before they have fully *donned* the blindfold. Penalty: disqualification of the attempt (DNF).


----------



## G2013 (Feb 17, 2017)

Jacck said:


> Well, I can not help with the memo (reading this posts I realized that I normally don't memo images but the little story for it - could be the reason, why I am so slow, but I really have difficulties in memoing or imagining a picture. Will have to think about that).
> But I can help G2013, look what you can read in the Regulations in Article B, Blindfolded Solving:
> 
> B4) Blindfolded phase:
> ...



Hahahaha danke Hanns!


----------



## oneshot (Feb 18, 2017)

Well, maybe I'm not asking the question in a way people are understanding, but I know what steps I'm supposed to do, in what order, and I assume everyone else does at least similar steps. But I'm looking for what you're *thinking* as you memo.

So, I'll give an example of what is going on inside my head as I memo. Exactly what I'm saying to myself.

(takes cover off of cube)
"ok, where is the blue...(finds blue and moves it to the front) and there's the yellow" (puts yellow center at top)
(Looks at buffer) "E-H, egg head" (pictures a big egg with a face on my front porch, my first location) 
"S then L, ummm... small lions? No, singing lions is better. Yeah, singing lions in the foyer" (pictures singing lions in the foyer)
"alright, J-B, jumping bunnies." (Pictures jumping bunnies in the TV room) "So we have egg head, singing lions, jumping bunnies"
"T-C well it's TW, so Tigers.....writing? Or Tigers wading in water? Ummm, Tigers writing is probably better" (pictures tigers writing at desks in the formal living room)
"MO, monkey........ monkey eating orange? fine, monkey eating an orange" (pictures a monkey eating an orange in the kitchen)
"AG, Aligator (one of the Letter pairs I have a single word for) Alligator in the bathroom" (pictures an alligator in the bathroom) 
"ok, so what's left?" (scans to make sure I'm done)
"oh, D. Just D. (pictures a big D on fire on the dining room table, my way of remembering that it's alone and there is parity)
"So, we had, egg head, singing lions, jumping bunnies, tigers writing, monkey eating an orange, alligator, D on fire" 
"ok, so for corners. BC....."

That's the type of things that I'm saying in my head. And it reads faster than I'm saying it in my head.

So what I'm wondering is what exactly are you saying to yourself as you memo.


----------



## sqAree (Feb 18, 2017)

Thanks for your example. This topic is very interesting. I want to give it a try although we can't describe our thoughts very accurately. Just FYI, I memo corners before edges, use M2/OP with speffz and the standard WCA scrambling orientation is my BLD orientation. My solving times are around 2:00 to 2:50 (I don't know how long I need for memo).

(lifts cover)
(turns cube randomly cause I suck at color scheme)
"where is the damn white"
(finds orientation)
"G - P - Gangplank, nice" (it's a character in League of Legends so I'm happy as I don't have images for every pair)
"D - S (visualizes the Nintendo DS but don't speak in my head) J - O, Johann" (that's a friend I know IRL)
"B (changes last images from JO=Johann to JOB=job), **** parity"
"Humm, isn't there a letter missing? Damn, a twisted corner, L (visualizes L sticker) clockwise"
(puts cube down, visualizing a scene where Gangplank plays on a DS as his occupation, while saying to myself "Gangplank - DS - job - clockwise")

(starting edges)
"I - T - Ö - X, itöx"
"P - B - F, oops I hit my buffer piece"
(looking at UB)
"A is free, p.bfa"
"S - Q, another cycle break >.< there must be more pieces cause I had parity"
(putting fingers on all stickers already memorized, finds BL - UL - LB, visualizes sticker positions of BL and UL and that it's a twisted 2-cycle without preparing the according speffz letters)
"itöx - p.bfa - s.k - itöx - p.bfa - s.k"
(puts blindfold down and starts to solve)

The dot indicates a vowel that is different to the ones already used in my letter scheme to connect two consonants to a syllable (something like the Russian "ы" in my case). For audio memo I generally use "Ö" (a German vowel) in "V"'s stead to avoid confusing it with "F" or "W", and "K" in "Q"'s stead as "K" corresponds to my buffer thus is not used.

That was interesting to see! I already suspected my memo is full of distracting thoughts and emotional curse noises, maybe I have to work on that.  Also you see that I don't just memo corners with images and edges with audio, but improvise depending on the situation: For example twisted corners visually and sometimes when I spend too much time on my audio edges I just skip recalling the letters for the last cycle if the cycle is short, like I did here.

Btw I DNFed the solve by a twisted corner on L. Not that surprising considering there was no twisted corner on L in the scramble (I already had all the corners in my memo, including letter G ._.). Not bad though, like that you were able to see how I would deal with twisted corners if there was one. xD


----------



## pinser (Feb 18, 2017)

I average 1ish (25 memo) so I'm not that fast but here goes.

Scramble: U F R2 D' F2 U R' B' L' B2 U B2 D2 R2 L2 U' L2 U2 Bw2 Uw Lw

See red on top and yellow in front, automatically (I kinda just know which way to rotate) rotate to white top green front solving orientation.

Check DF edge piece then remember that this isn't MBLD so I should be solving corners first. 

ULB sticker goes to "R" sticker which goes to "V" so that's RV (recreational vehicle)
Next is "K" which has the buffer so I shoot to "D" which corresponds to kid
Then "O" and "F" which is OFF (the mosquito spray can)
The "F" sticker goes to the "D" location which completes the cycle but there's parity so memo a lone "D".
Finally, I know I haven't shot to the DRB cubie so I check it, it needs a cw twist which is "happy" emotion.
Then I put all that info together, rv kids off D "yesss" and visualize an RV kidding the can while a big letter D stands next to them then I feel happy

I memo edges with audio so:
RJDB KIET WF (ridge-dub keeyet woof) visual the two flipped edges

Then solve edges and then solve corners then DNF.

The few things I noticed about my memo is:
1) I don't need to review until I've finished memoing all the corners/edges, and even then it's not really a review. It's more of a "Ok I know I can pull it out of my head when it comes to it" feeling. And if I don't have that feeling (which happens occasional when I'm really tired or memo was bad) then I'll do a real review (trace the cube, walk through memo).
2) I don't think about what each letter pair should be, it automatically comes to my mind (for MBLD or 4BLD I have several alternate or filler words so sentences flow better)
3) The main difference between my memo when I was your speed and now is I recall each letter pair faster, read the cube faster, and memo sticks in my head a lot better.

It's mainly just a matter of practice. Memory is like a muscle: The more you practice, the better it gets.


----------



## leeo (Mar 25, 2017)

Having progressed from 30-minute memos to 10-minute memos and then 5-minute memos, I found it helpful to place the letter sequence into the following 5-piece structure: I pair two consecutive letter pairs into letter quads, and form one active image around each quad. Usually adjective-noun-verb-adverb, or subject-verb-indirect_object-object, or some other such form. Two quads usually cover the corners and three quads usually cover the edges.


----------

