Those of us who want to
increase our brain power need some positive examples to follow. We need to see
somebody who being humans with the same tendencies and ways to excuse ourselves
for failures was able to overcome various obstacles and achieve great things in
memory improvement. Such people do exist. There have been various competitions
since ancient times that would test people abilities to memorize things, but
modern world memory championships started only in 1991. Let me give you a list
of the winners of the events and maybe say one or two things about each one of
them. So, here we go.
1. Dominic O’Brien (English).
He has been world memory champion even eight times. He actually won the first
championship that took place in London in 1991. He started training his memory
at the age of 30 after seeing a television program on the topic. See how far he
has gone! Dominic wrote a lot of books on memory development and is probably
the best expert in the field.
2. Andi Bell (English). He
has been world memory champion three times. He managed to achieve this great
success by using a method of loci.
3. Ben Pridmore (English).
He has been world memory champion three times too. Ben likes creating a story for
remembering things. He often creates images (in his mind) around his old
school. This helps him to pattern his story much better.
4. Clemens Mayer (German).
He is the first German who has won the title of world memory champion. He was
able to repeat the success one more time. He planned to be a runner, but later
changed his mind and decided to go to mental sports. He also (like Andi Bell)
uses the method of loci.
5. Wang Feng (Chinese). He
has been world memory champion two times. He did it two years in a row in 2010
and 2011.
6. Jonathan Hancock
(English). He has been interested in mnemonics for a long time and written
eleven books on memory and studying. Many would be surprised but he works as a
teacher in primary school. For many years he worked as a radio presenter. As
you may understand he is not a theoretician, but practices what he has learned
in the field of mnemonics in his studies.
Ok, I do not know if you were
inspired by the post, but I sure am writing it. It is time to finish, but the
good news is: I am going to describe how these world memory championship tournaments
take place in my future posts. Have a nice day!