namaste well it is an honor and pleasure
for me to stand here and deliver a talk
I still remember where I was in my
college I always dreamt of myself
standing here and delivering a talk and
finally it has happened and I am really
glad my name is Prateek odda and I am a
mental athlete so just like of just like
an athlete who does physical training to
get sharper and better
I do mental training to memorize things
faster and better
so we’ll delve into memory training and
memory competitions but before that I
would like to give a memory
demonstration so for the demonstration
what I am going to do I would I would
like any 20 people to speak out the last
two digits of their mobile phone numbers
any 20 people one by one so that he can
write so you have to be louder so that
everybody can hear
are we done right
all right so I will turn my face round
and then I will speak out the sequence
right so the sequence is a zero one six
x four one nine six nine two seven seven
seven eight one one zero five nine nine
seven five four eight four nine nine
eight seven three nine zero one zero six
six two six three one nine five three
three seven two one zero and nine nine
two zero
thank you so much let’s make it a bit
difficult should I try to recall it in
the reverse order
should I try ok this limit let me try it
can we have the sequence on the screen
zero two nine nine zero one two seven
three three five nine one three six two
zero six zero one zero nine three seven
eight nine nine four then it is eight
four five seven nine nine five zero one
one seven eight seven seven two nine six
nine one four and six six one zero thank
you so much in fact I took all very long
time to memorize this so whenever I’m
training I do it really really fast all
right
so I’ll talk about memory competitions I
am a memory athlete as I told you before
so in memory competitions mental
athletes from all over the globe they
come and gather at one place and they
are tested in ten different disciplines
which involves memorization of thousands
of random numbers binary digits
historical dates abstract images random
words names and faces and much more so
the most interesting thing about all the
mental athletes including me is that we
are not born with this skill we are not
super humans we do not have photographic
memories we have just mastered ancient
techniques to an extent where it has
become second nature to us right so I’ll
talk about myself my experiences so far
as a memory athlete and what are the
struggles that I face during my initial
days so when I was a teenager I was a
lot into the spiritual stuff I never
really went out for the movies I never
had I never had many friends I never
really believed in hanging out I was
kind of a very introverted person I was
not anti-social I was an introvert
person so I was really interested in
yoga and pranayama I used to read a lot
about
kondeh so one day I was reading an
article about him which said that he
could memorize the entire encyclopedias
and books along with the page numbers
and that thing really blew me away and
that was the moment when I got the
inspiration from him to improve my
memory but then I had no clue how to go
ahead
so curiosity started creeping up in my
head as the day progressed I started
searching on the internet about various
ways through which I could have enhanced
the productivity and potential of my
brain so finally after researching quite
a lot I read a lot of articles about how
our brain functions and about the
ancient memory techniques so these
ancient memory techniques were created
by Simonides
or the ancient Greeks because back then
there were no gadgets there were no
calculators there was there wasn’t any
technology so in order to memorize huge
number of data huge amount of data
rather they had no other option except
memorizing them so all the memory
athlete they are basically using those
ancient technique there is a slight
improvisation in in the system that’s it
so I created a system over the course of
few weeks and after completing that
system I started practicing relentlessly
so it was a lot of fun initially when I
started practicing it
it looks very boring like you are
memorizing numbers and binary digits it
looks really boring but the person who
is actually memorizing it there is a lot
going on in his head so I really loved
the idea of pushing myself every now and
then I wanted to become I wanted to go
faster I wanted to memorize you know
more every single time so within two
months of my training I was already
breaking national records in training
then after a few more months I started
breaking World Records in few
disciplines while training as well so I
became really confident that I was
progressing so fast so in 2013 I went to
Mumbai that was my first ever
competition that was national memory
championship
so that was my debut championship I was
confident enough of winning the
championship
and fortunately enough everything went
accordingly and I ended up winning the
championship with a record-breaking
score back then and I won with a huge
margin and ever since I’ve been
competing on a regular basis and I’ve
been winning those championships for the
past four years and I’m also ranked
number one in India when it comes to
memorizing things like these so I
represented India recently in December
in Singapore for the world championship
and there I want two goals and one
silver I also became the first and only
international Grandmaster of memory in
the history of memory sports and also I
I broke into top ten of the world
rankings which was also the first ever
Indian who has accomplished this feat so
a lot of people ask me how how you did
it I mean in this field there are a lot
of people but they haven’t been in the
top from India how you were able to do
it so I would say that’s that is I was
like really passionate towards it you
know it it kind of became an obsession
for me I like even if a single day goes
without training I used to feel really
is sleepless during night I used to feel
like something has missed I wasted one
single day so I became so focused so
after the championship now my vision and
my dream is to make this sport popular
there aren’t many athletes from India
because there are very few people who
knows about this sport it will take some
time to become a mainstream sport
hopefully so now I will talk about the
memory and how I do what I do so
basically our brain is structured in
such a manner that it remembers pictures
and images really well it understands
only coherent things like it never
really it finds the abstract things like
numbers and binary digits boring so it
doesn’t really remember them so what I
do
so I convert the information which I
have to memorize into some meaningful
term and then converting it into an
imaginary thing I create a story out of
it and then I commit it to my memory
so once Albert Einstein said that
imagination is more important than
knowledge and I realize the importance
of this quotation once I started
training for the championships because
without imagination nobody can really
improve his or her memory so in order to
illustrate the importance of imagination
power of imagination we’ll do an
activity and you will immediately
realize that the imagination can really
enhance memory memory is trainable
anybody can improve their memory anybody
can memorize the sequence the only thing
that you need to have is persistent and
focus all right so we have if we have a
list over here as you can see the list
so there is one method through which you
can memorize the entire list and that is
the repetition method which we have
learned or which we have been learning
since our school days our teachers have
taught us to memorize anything by doing
repetition method but there are certain
drawbacks of this method the drawback is
that you have to constantly revise
everything in order to keep it
permanently so I will tell you an
alternative method you just have to
imagine you just have to focus on the
story what I am going to tell you and
focus what is going to be pictured so
the first word is elephant so you have
to imagine a huge elephant huge elephant
just imagine so the elephant is holding
a key in its trunk just focus on the
story so the elephant is holding a key
in the trunk then he took the key under
a waterfall in order to wash it so when
he was washing the key a fish
immediately popped out of the waterfall
because the water fall you have to
imagine the water was a magical so when
the fish came out you have to imagine
fish ate that key and after
eating that key it got wings because I
was a magical magical key you have to
exaggerate the images there is only then
you will be able to memorize it
after getting wings it fly it flew long
and long way and if it reached the
desert after reaching the desert there
was a tornado coming up so the tornado
came up soon the tornado the tornado the
fire it became a fiery tornado it became
a fiery tornado so the fiery tornado so
after like moving around it actually
threw a telephone out of it it might it
might it it might have consumed
somewhere while going across and as you
know the telephone it became really you
can say because it came out of the
tornado it became very dangerous so it
was emitting radiations so now you have
to repeat the story with me so elephant
elephant came at a key on its trunk
right
so give yourself a huge round of
applause you just you just memorize an
entire list without even putting much
efforts similarly you can memorize
shopping lists or it could be anything
so now I am sure you won’t be forgetting
this list for a while because whenever I
ask you in future you will immediately
get the story so that is how it is done
and thank you so much for having me here
[Applause]
for me to stand here and deliver a talk
I still remember where I was in my
college I always dreamt of myself
standing here and delivering a talk and
finally it has happened and I am really
glad my name is Prateek odda and I am a
mental athlete so just like of just like
an athlete who does physical training to
get sharper and better
I do mental training to memorize things
faster and better
so we’ll delve into memory training and
memory competitions but before that I
would like to give a memory
demonstration so for the demonstration
what I am going to do I would I would
like any 20 people to speak out the last
two digits of their mobile phone numbers
any 20 people one by one so that he can
write so you have to be louder so that
everybody can hear
are we done right
all right so I will turn my face round
and then I will speak out the sequence
right so the sequence is a zero one six
x four one nine six nine two seven seven
seven eight one one zero five nine nine
seven five four eight four nine nine
eight seven three nine zero one zero six
six two six three one nine five three
three seven two one zero and nine nine
two zero
thank you so much let’s make it a bit
difficult should I try to recall it in
the reverse order
should I try ok this limit let me try it
can we have the sequence on the screen
zero two nine nine zero one two seven
three three five nine one three six two
zero six zero one zero nine three seven
eight nine nine four then it is eight
four five seven nine nine five zero one
one seven eight seven seven two nine six
nine one four and six six one zero thank
you so much in fact I took all very long
time to memorize this so whenever I’m
training I do it really really fast all
right
so I’ll talk about memory competitions I
am a memory athlete as I told you before
so in memory competitions mental
athletes from all over the globe they
come and gather at one place and they
are tested in ten different disciplines
which involves memorization of thousands
of random numbers binary digits
historical dates abstract images random
words names and faces and much more so
the most interesting thing about all the
mental athletes including me is that we
are not born with this skill we are not
super humans we do not have photographic
memories we have just mastered ancient
techniques to an extent where it has
become second nature to us right so I’ll
talk about myself my experiences so far
as a memory athlete and what are the
struggles that I face during my initial
days so when I was a teenager I was a
lot into the spiritual stuff I never
really went out for the movies I never
had I never had many friends I never
really believed in hanging out I was
kind of a very introverted person I was
not anti-social I was an introvert
person so I was really interested in
yoga and pranayama I used to read a lot
about
kondeh so one day I was reading an
article about him which said that he
could memorize the entire encyclopedias
and books along with the page numbers
and that thing really blew me away and
that was the moment when I got the
inspiration from him to improve my
memory but then I had no clue how to go
ahead
so curiosity started creeping up in my
head as the day progressed I started
searching on the internet about various
ways through which I could have enhanced
the productivity and potential of my
brain so finally after researching quite
a lot I read a lot of articles about how
our brain functions and about the
ancient memory techniques so these
ancient memory techniques were created
by Simonides
or the ancient Greeks because back then
there were no gadgets there were no
calculators there was there wasn’t any
technology so in order to memorize huge
number of data huge amount of data
rather they had no other option except
memorizing them so all the memory
athlete they are basically using those
ancient technique there is a slight
improvisation in in the system that’s it
so I created a system over the course of
few weeks and after completing that
system I started practicing relentlessly
so it was a lot of fun initially when I
started practicing it
it looks very boring like you are
memorizing numbers and binary digits it
looks really boring but the person who
is actually memorizing it there is a lot
going on in his head so I really loved
the idea of pushing myself every now and
then I wanted to become I wanted to go
faster I wanted to memorize you know
more every single time so within two
months of my training I was already
breaking national records in training
then after a few more months I started
breaking World Records in few
disciplines while training as well so I
became really confident that I was
progressing so fast so in 2013 I went to
Mumbai that was my first ever
competition that was national memory
championship
so that was my debut championship I was
confident enough of winning the
championship
and fortunately enough everything went
accordingly and I ended up winning the
championship with a record-breaking
score back then and I won with a huge
margin and ever since I’ve been
competing on a regular basis and I’ve
been winning those championships for the
past four years and I’m also ranked
number one in India when it comes to
memorizing things like these so I
represented India recently in December
in Singapore for the world championship
and there I want two goals and one
silver I also became the first and only
international Grandmaster of memory in
the history of memory sports and also I
I broke into top ten of the world
rankings which was also the first ever
Indian who has accomplished this feat so
a lot of people ask me how how you did
it I mean in this field there are a lot
of people but they haven’t been in the
top from India how you were able to do
it so I would say that’s that is I was
like really passionate towards it you
know it it kind of became an obsession
for me I like even if a single day goes
without training I used to feel really
is sleepless during night I used to feel
like something has missed I wasted one
single day so I became so focused so
after the championship now my vision and
my dream is to make this sport popular
there aren’t many athletes from India
because there are very few people who
knows about this sport it will take some
time to become a mainstream sport
hopefully so now I will talk about the
memory and how I do what I do so
basically our brain is structured in
such a manner that it remembers pictures
and images really well it understands
only coherent things like it never
really it finds the abstract things like
numbers and binary digits boring so it
doesn’t really remember them so what I
do
so I convert the information which I
have to memorize into some meaningful
term and then converting it into an
imaginary thing I create a story out of
it and then I commit it to my memory
so once Albert Einstein said that
imagination is more important than
knowledge and I realize the importance
of this quotation once I started
training for the championships because
without imagination nobody can really
improve his or her memory so in order to
illustrate the importance of imagination
power of imagination we’ll do an
activity and you will immediately
realize that the imagination can really
enhance memory memory is trainable
anybody can improve their memory anybody
can memorize the sequence the only thing
that you need to have is persistent and
focus all right so we have if we have a
list over here as you can see the list
so there is one method through which you
can memorize the entire list and that is
the repetition method which we have
learned or which we have been learning
since our school days our teachers have
taught us to memorize anything by doing
repetition method but there are certain
drawbacks of this method the drawback is
that you have to constantly revise
everything in order to keep it
permanently so I will tell you an
alternative method you just have to
imagine you just have to focus on the
story what I am going to tell you and
focus what is going to be pictured so
the first word is elephant so you have
to imagine a huge elephant huge elephant
just imagine so the elephant is holding
a key in its trunk just focus on the
story so the elephant is holding a key
in the trunk then he took the key under
a waterfall in order to wash it so when
he was washing the key a fish
immediately popped out of the waterfall
because the water fall you have to
imagine the water was a magical so when
the fish came out you have to imagine
fish ate that key and after
eating that key it got wings because I
was a magical magical key you have to
exaggerate the images there is only then
you will be able to memorize it
after getting wings it fly it flew long
and long way and if it reached the
desert after reaching the desert there
was a tornado coming up so the tornado
came up soon the tornado the tornado the
fire it became a fiery tornado it became
a fiery tornado so the fiery tornado so
after like moving around it actually
threw a telephone out of it it might it
might it it might have consumed
somewhere while going across and as you
know the telephone it became really you
can say because it came out of the
tornado it became very dangerous so it
was emitting radiations so now you have
to repeat the story with me so elephant
elephant came at a key on its trunk
right
so give yourself a huge round of
applause you just you just memorize an
entire list without even putting much
efforts similarly you can memorize
shopping lists or it could be anything
so now I am sure you won’t be forgetting
this list for a while because whenever I
ask you in future you will immediately
get the story so that is how it is done
and thank you so much for having me here
[Applause]
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