Memory Techniques w/ Tenuun Tamir (2023 World Memory Champion)

On this show, I'm not sure. This craft. Tenun is a Mongolian memory athlete and the 2023 World Memory Champion. She has several world records and is highly respected in the memory sports community. In this episode, we talk about some of her techniques, the systems that she uses, and some of her training methods. So without further ado, let us get into the episode and hope you all enjoy.

So tell us a little bit about yourself and how did you become involved with memory sport? So what attracts you to the art of memory? Okay, so this is how my memory journey started. It was the summer of 2017 and I was 14 years old. And there there would be this seasonal announcement of the Mongolian Intellectual Academy about memory courses and also this is uh this mental calculation courses but that is mainly adapted to kids. And um, but yeah, I was attracted to the memory course.

Of course. And and I wanted to enroll. This announcement was like a sponsored ad on f Facebook. And there was these um memory athletes with ear pods on and with this uh blue polo shirt. And I and I saw them and I thought like, oh my God, I want to be like them. I want to uh memorize stuff. I want to learn how all all of this works. And I also wanted to uh

compete in championships of course. I don't know. I just thought like I oh my oh my god. I want to compete with my mind in com like participating in championships. it all of this felt quite interesting for me. And and I also wanted to do something that summer. Like I felt the orange of it to uh to improve myself in some sort of aspect or or like to learn something new. And that that is how I first stepped into the memory sport. And what attracts me a lot of memories that

I I don't know. I I I like the the way how my mind perceives it. When I come to think of this memorization stuff, when I think a lot of numbers. and cards. I like this structured pack of information. Like I I like how my mind perceives this. uh a lot of data, structured data that I need to tackle. uh in some sequence and like it feels like a puzzle, right? It feels quite interesting for me. Yeah, so you like the structure, using your imagination. Yeah. Okay. Very good.

So outside of memory sports, what do you like to do for fun? Um What what do you do on your free time or or what is some what are some things that others may not know about you? Okay, so I have a lot of hobbies. I am a dancer. Oh really? I I I like dance a lot. Uh main mainly I dance in the K pop genre in Korean music. I like this Korean girl uh group's music a lot and the dance feels uh energetic and I I like to vibe with the the beat of it.

But yeah, when I if I have more free time time, I might jump into another music genres. And I also like to take photos. Like everywhere everywhere I go, well, not always, but if I go to special places, like if I'm traveling to other countries and I see some interesting scenaries that might cut come up as as cool shots. I Well, I I don't have any on professional camera

at all for now. I just take shots with my iPhone. I also like really like to lead read books. These days I'm currently reading uh this novel uh called Call Me by Your Name. And I'm enjoying it. Yeah, yeah, okay. I've I think they also have a movie about that as well. Yeah. I watched the movie and to go to India.

There was n this uh War Memory Championship twenty twenty three held there, right? And I went there passing through the Thailand Airport and they had this book bookstore there when where where I saw the book and I thought like, oh my God, this is very cool and I thought of buying it. um but I didn't buy it in at at that moment. But when coming back from the competition, I I just bought the book. I loved the movie a lot and uh I also enjoying the book.

Oh nice. Okay. So you like dancing, uh photography and reading. Okay. Very cool. So uh let's transition into some some mnemonics and to uh talk about the art of memory for a little bit. So I'm curious to know

What does your memory training schedule look like? And how much do you train when preparing for a competition? So I I really enjoy asking this question because I've interviewed many memory athletes and they all have There are different philosophies of memory training. And I'm I'm curious to know what is your approach and how do you

think about memory training and what does it look like exactly? At most shortly, I practice uh one hour and thirty minutes, but that would make up only for the shortest disciplines training. If I train for the or for for the another disciplines which require a longer amount of training like memorizing and recalling. And that would be longed up to like four to five hours. Yeah. And sleeping at two AM is the light. a normal thing for me because of the training.

Do you also train on memory league or is it primarily the I am software. So what memory training software do you use or do you train with uh physical cards and and paper? What is what does that look like? Okay, so I don't really train digitally, but I'm really interested in competing in the IM competitions in the future. And of course they would require me to uh compet digitally and maybe I would uh be more uh focusing on learning to use the software and adapt to that.

And I don't train on memory leak. Well uh Honestly, I don't have interest in memory league. I like more the classic competitions. I'm adapted to it since the very start of my memory journey. I train with physical cards. And papers. Number numbers and binary numbers on it.

And we Mongolian athletes also have these training a software on the computer that offers training sheets that makes us print our memory stuff like Uh it randomly shuffles up uh names and the historical dates, the abstract images stuff, and I use them to print my memory practice sheets. Acquaintances, friends of mine mine would Like to pre would prefer to train together. That is how they focus with all of the the noise.

of their homes they can't really focus when practicing. But for me it's totally different.

I'm real I'm already accustomed to all of the noise of my siblings and with all the noise which is happening in my home. For everyone that would imagine that it's terrible, right? For for focusing on memorizations but like I'm already adapted to that whatever com noise comes at my memorization I just learned to focus entirely on what I'm doing and it's It's also a thing that saves up my time um to go to the academy to tr to to train and go back to home.

that would require like a really lot of time like Uh since we have a lot of traffic dam dam in Mongolia at night, that would like take up to two hours at max and that would be a lot of training times and also I'm I do my best when I train alone. and not with others. Of course I went to the academy for some united training for the competition, but like I only opt for that.

only for one or two times but because like I felt like well but like on my uh latest competitions I never really went to the academy to practice with others because um really before that like on the 2022. WMC, I I just realized that um in the presence of with the presence of others around me, I can't focus entirely on what I'm doing. When I'm doing when I'm memorizing my stuff, I like I'm like feeling the energy of others around me, uh concentr also them concentrating on their stuff and like

Like I don't know, I just feel that energy and it feels weird. Yeah. And I like to do my stuff alone. Yeah, I do better. I can focus better. So you mentioned about training short disciplines. So would you dedicate, let's say uh historical n um dates on Monday.

um names on Tuesday, uh five minute numbers on Wednesday, or do you try to do all of the short disciplines in one day, um, what does it look like exactly? Um, or or how do you How do you distribute uh the disciplines throughout the week? Do you try to get a little bit each day or is there some type of order? My teacher advises me to make a schedule. Well uh earlier he advised to make a schedule of each discipline uh for each each day.

Um but like I don't really like to come up with an schedule that's that's structured thing to improve. Because I feel when I need to improve that discipline, I I just always happen to do that. and like to comment spontaneously which discipline to tackle that day. And for linear progress in a discipline, well, I'd need to come up with a a fixed performance for my competition, right?

And to revive my capacity of memorizing after a long break of memorization on some discipline, I'd like to take that discipline very seriously and do that to three to four days in a row so I could see some uh some serious improvement on it. and leave that f later for s some days and start focusing on another disciplines. Well I do that f for Two or three or maybe four disciplines uh e every day and after

I revive my capacity of memorizing on them. I leave them for some days and the the the days I'm resting making the memory palaces rest. I to take the and other disciplines to do the same for them. And that's how I work. So you you try to focus on uh some and then you sort of uh rotate them.

Yeah. So um I'm curious, how many memory policies do you have? Okay, I actually didn't Count them. Yeah, but like I have enough memory palaces for four thousand. numbers in only our numbers and I also have uh in enough memory palaces for fifty decks in an hour. But like I'll also I ha I'd have another uh memory palaces of course on on binary numbers. Um but I think I use my binary numbers, memory palaces for words. And that also applies for spoken numbers.

So to become really good at this sport, it seems like one needs discipline and consistency. Of course. And How do you stay disciplined? What are some things that you do to make sure that you are training consistently and how do you avoid uh burnout? Okay, so acknowledging that responsibility is very important, like I I need to do my training today. I shouldn't skip this for today. I should be very careful of not doing that and not like procrastinate, watch social media.

And just realize that you should you need to use that time of the day to make sure you do some enough training to improve even a little bit. Yeah, the little steps count. Yeah, and that res remember remembering that responsibility and remembering that motivation for wanting to improve is really important to not skip daily training. And at the end of the day we all of us have time for something, right? We just end up watching our phones.

And we just should be careful of not doing that and actually remembering to divide our time in on the things that actually matter.

And yeah, um you also asked about how to avoid burning out, right? I don't practice daily. I I do uh longer Uh I'm out of training like for not a lot of days. But like of course for a consistent four to five days in a row, but like Rest for one or two days.

And continue to like a shorter amount of daily training because I feel like if I practice daily, I if I feel lazy or tired when I'm doing my stuff and not seeing my performances improve and When my performances become low or just fixed in in one amount of number or cards or words. I f I feel like Oh my god, I'm gonna burn out. I need to rest for one or two days. Yeah, and when I come up, when I come again after two or three days, even after I rest.

For three days my performances have improved from before. And yeah, resting is also very important, even if you have that motivation to improve. Yeah, that's that's good. Good advice.

So I'm I'm very curious about your systems. Everyone asks, what system do you use? What's your card system, number system? If you read the art of memory form, they're always looking uh looking at what are people's systems, especially it seems like uh different countries tend to to lean towards different types of systems. So I'm curious to know what are your systems and what do you use for cards?

and numbers. Okay, I use PAO. I always use PAO. I don't I don't really use another thing. And my imaginations, for example, of course okay. I would talk in cards. First uh my imaginations are made up of three three cards respectively in PAO PAO and that would be seventeen imaginations in one deck but the last imagination has two actions. Like if someone does does something and then they did something again on that object. Like it's like that. And for numbers.

And there's 40 digits in one row, right? And there would be seven imaginations. And one imagination is made up of six digits. Someone did that with that object on that memory palette. And on one row, six imaginations with six digits. And the last imagination would be made up of four digits. P A, that would be. Person action. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Cool. And uh what phonetics do you use? Do you use something like uh the major or the dominic system? Or do you use something out?

I use the major system. I have one hundred people, objects, and actions respectively, each of them using the major system. Well all of us uh have that same type of major system. For example, well, all of us don't have the uh same people or objects or actions as talking of the Mongolian athletes.

We well, we received that prepared sheet of what number what person to see what object to see in some number but we uh change Every athlete changed that to their own manner, to their own preferable way of seeing them better. If I talk of an ex example on the number zero is called tick in Mongolian. Tik. Yeah, that's zero. And on the first letter of that word, T, we saw we see zero as T and the number one in Mongolian is called Nik.

And the num the number one we see it as the first letter of the that word. Like we see the number one as N. But that not applies for all of the numbers. The the the rest of the numbers are seen in the way that are connected to their shapes. Yeah, we we we we would see the rest of the numbers connecting them to the their shapes to the uh same shapes of another letter. And for example, I memorized myself in the number zero one.

Because that is T N and I'm T noon. Ah, okay. Nice, nice. So I know you have some world records. Uh what what are some of your world records? Well, I improved a lot.

Since twenty twenty. And Since that time, our national championships are only being held under the War Memory Sports Council and all the world records I hold. are just on that council. But when I go to IM competitions in the future, I would aim to hold like s one or two work records under the organization. But currently I'm holding three War records under the uh War Memory Sports Council and That would be like well

I don't I didn't realize from the very start that I'm good at numbers. Like my hey my favorite disciplines is numbers and I'm good at it and like I competitions, I always do do the best on numbers disciplines. I didn't know, I didn't like realize that never. But it happens that people people and my teachers talk about me, that I'm the best at numbers disciplines and it happens that the war records that I hold are all of consist are consist of numbers and that's very curious.

And I don't know. I do my best on the numbers disciplines, uh on the competitions. I really feel comfortable when I'm tackling them, writing the memorization times. I don't know, it just comes up like that. Nice, nice. Yeah, it's it it they would be better than uh cards. I don't know, but I also like cards a lot. Well I I really like all of the disciplines but um numbers.

Yeah, numbers would come up at at as first. And yeah, going back to the records I hold, yeah, the there are three war records. And Well, I I previously had four war records, but one of that though that record was broken my by my friend Sao Bosum. Inktoya, if you heard about her in the 2022 Mongolian Championship, that was 10 minute cards. Well, I held that record um before for like three years and memorizing eight Decks and forty six cards in ten minutes.

Yeah, but like the three records I actually hold, the first one is five minute binary numbers and one thousand six hundred eighty-eight digits in five minutes. Yeah, and I I also like a lot thirty minute minor numbers. I I also think if not the war record I hold the initial record for that like with six thousand three hundred digits and so. That would break the I and World Record by I only they did that performance in the War Memory Sports cons competition. So, um

So you're you're you're good at numbers. So what advice would you give to a memory athlete who is Memorizing 200 or 300 digits in five minutes, but once to reach that five hundred digits. uh digit level and more. Um, how can one increase their speed and accuracy in this uh discipline? Any tips for training? Okay, so in my memory journey I really re realized that in in these disciplines with the name Speed on It Actually need speed for the first time.

like we need to recognize in ourselves that speed we we need to go with speed on And if we just go with the pace of um memorizing 300 digits, which is which in a in a pace uh which is comfortable for us, we will never come to improve. And we actually need to realize that we need to go with the speed. And first for that We need to have our images. of the person, of the people, of the objects, of the actions, very clear in our mind.

We do some mistakes when uh recalling, right? We don't recall the exact number. And if if we have the images of our uh 300 words, we would come up with really little mistakes really. And to make better imaginations well, and we also need to stick them really good to our um memory palaces to not forget them, right? So to um create really good imaginations like um imaginations with the which the PAO sticks to each other very good we also need that um

really considerable amount of practice and to actually improve on creating imaginations. And the speed, I think the speed eventually comes with this. When we do a lot of practice like Each time we practice we create a lot a lot of imaginations, right? And with that pace of consistent training, we will eventually improve and speed comes with it. Yeah. So consistency of training and realizing that we need to go fast is important. Yeah, those two things, main things.

So let's say they're at three hundred Uh you would say that they should try to do 500 even though they may be making some mistakes. But just for them to get used to the speed and then eventually improve the accuracy.

Yeah, yeah. So I I saw that you have set some national records for the hour disciplines. What is your approach to review in the hour disciplines? In other words, what is your approach to being fast and yet accurate without having gaps in your recall? Okay, so

Well, if I train for longer amount of time, uh actually the uh performances I actually seem to do in the hour disciplines could be better. Well, um Before championships I in my late latest championship I always used to practice for a month of a month and a half. I also did that on my latest competitions. And just reviving my performances, but they can can be better. But just um reviving them, they would be uh thirty eight decks of cards in one hour and Okay, if and if we talk about our card.

Well, people my f my memory friends I don't know really know about in other foreign athletes, but as I know of my um Mongolian athl athlete friends the most of them reviewed them by like a shorter amount of cards. Each set of review and that set would contain like seven to ten decks, but that is really uncomfortable for me. And another way of reviewing them works for me. That would be like a bigger set of cards.

for reviewing. For example, I memorize my um first through the twentieth deck and for reviewing I would I I would just memorize them uh one time, right? Um but uh on each deck respectively I uh memorizing each deck I reviewed that deck and that each point of them but when review and like for one deck I'm tackling I would memorize one time and review one time.

But like starting from my first deck I would start to review my second time. And after my twenty-first deck to to the very very last deck, The 38th deck, I would also do that and review again the second time, starting from the 21st deck. And that would be two reviews. One memorization with two reviews. Yes, I heard about some athletes that do three reviews. But I would recommend to do on to learn to do

only two reviews because that is really enough. Yeah. We should change our way of reviewing each set, changing the amount of decks we tackle for reviewing on each set. maybe trying to do some change on that. Okay, and for our numbers, when I come about of thinking numbers, I really like numbers a lot. When I think about it now. And okay, so there would be one thousand digits on one page, right? I also divide them by a re on review.

Firstly, I would I would like to memorize the 80% of the page and review that again and and memorize the left. rows and review them them again. And I would do that. Well, I always do that on long longer sheets of uh numbers. even of 15 minute numbers I divide them like that and when I uh tackle the uh longer amounts of time of of numbers I also try to see them like as separate but a longer time but separate fifteen minute numbers.

time and so I would do that like for my first and second page of numbers. and start to review all of them again, starting from the first page. I don't have time to do a second review for my third page. And that would be only one memorization and one review. Okay. And I would jump to my fourth page, right? And if I have time. I would do a review. If not, I would I'd just s see one.

On my better days of practice, I would of course have time to review, right? But if I like have like when I'm memorizing three thousand and eight hundred digits. But if I have bad days like only coming to memorize the uh twelve or thirteen rows on the last page. Uh I would I wouldn't have time to review them.

But yeah, if I had time, that would be only they would they would have only one review. Yeah, I've I've actually never uh done the hour discipline before. I usually do like the the shorter disciplines, but It's it's uh That that it it seems like it takes a lot of uh stamp stamina and energy and endurance to yeah to do that. So yeah, I like your I like your approach to review. Um thanks for sharing.

So if you could uh get a time machine and go back in time and visit your younger self. And if you could speak to your younger self and give some advice as a memory athlete. Uh what would you say? What would you say to yourself? Is there is there any important lesson that you would give? There's I think only there's one thing, only some regret for some period of time in my um memory athlete journey, but that would come up This happened in the late. 2019年

But that would be only one year of dip debuting as a memory athlete. Even if I started in the summer of twenty seventeen um trying to learn uh all of the techniques and go in by the schedule of the academy. I did debuted as in athlete in the in March of 2018. That would be my first competition in the national championship of 2018. I had no experience at all. I was totally a beginner.

mm the another the super athletes of the country. Well, all of us are friends now. I would see them like and oh I I would be I would become like them one day. I just need to practice more. But like I wouldn't really realize that that amount of needed training to become like them. Well, even if Some really exceptional achievements come with time. Well, I progress. Linearly, my overall score would come up from 3,500 to 4,300 and then to 5,600, and then to six.

thousand to five hundred. Well, but if I if I think I would really realize this responsibility of wanting to improve more more, well I don't know. It just can't came up That just came up from my insight. Like I felt like I could do more than I was actually doing when I was scoring 4,000 digits. And when I was like younger, 15 or 16 years old. I wouldn't really realize that and I think I would um improve and in a really shorter amount of time if I gave more time of training.

um for a shorter amount of time. But even if my progress in until I could reach 8,000 points is not bad, I would really see that desired progress of mine in a shorter amount of time if I used my days beginner days wisely. And I would really wanted to have seen that Tinoon. in in in my previous times. Yeah. And I would advise my 15, 16-year-old myself to use your taste wisely and don't watch that series that you're really addicted to.

And yeah, if you felt like you could do more than you're actually doing, well, maybe I was feeling that capacity of of mine that I that I can do better, really better. On memory sports, I I would really have listened to that gut feeling of mine and put on um really um bigger amount of training and use my beginner days more wisely. Yeah, I would

I would like that. So where do you see yourself in the future? Um is is memory sport a hobby for now or do you want to open up an academy of your own in the future or do some coaching or do something in the field of mnemonics? Where where do you see yourself in in the future? Well for now I don't have any vision for that, but I think that's only for now since I'm studying.

for well I'm gonna study in uh I'm gonna start at university in Europe very soon. Oh nice and yeah I'm Yeah, I'm not currently studying in a Mongolian university and I'm currently preparing for the university and trans exams for now that I would be examined in late spring. Yeah. And I'm only focusing on them now. And since I will be a un uh now uh a freshman in university in the future future I would

and instead of coaching or something like that. But of course I have interest in that. Like trying to teach people what I know to acquire those things better. I I also would think I would like to improve my teaching skills to come when communicating with other people to teach teach them what I know. And yeah, memory sports is only a hobby for now. Well, I would surely enjoy to participate in the competitions I can during my university time. And after that

I don't know what will really happen, but for now I will only enjoy participating in the memory competitions. I would be interested as well. And I also see uh the opportunity of participating in the comp foreign competitions. an opportunity to travel and enjoy exploring in other cultures. Yeah, and I would travel to the countries I'd be interested at. Oh nice.

So uh what what country in Europe are you going to study at? Well, I was born and raised in Spain. Um, I spent my childhood there. I lived there with my family. And now I'm going back to yeah, my mother country. Oh I I I did not know that. Wow, that's that's pretty cool. Wow. Okay, and and and and what will you be studying there? I will study computer science. Yeah. And Well, studying abroad in my in country in Mongolia is very popular. Well, it's just an interesting fact.

Yeah, in Mongolia, um these days uh a lot of young people, like the eighty percent of young people, would talk in English very well. Um, including the very young kids. Like, yeah, they would learn English at school if they go to private schools very well. And yeah, we also would like to talk. uh mixing English in our Mongolians or some people like some teenagers of my age would talk only of in English if they want, if they vibe with it with with their friends. And yeah.

We would like really use w like to use those language skills of us and we would be be be very interested in studying abroad, like in English speaking countries mainly. we pr really like to um prepare for that. And like IELTS core courses, there's like this uh foreign this English examination exam for foreign people, right? IELTS TOFL. SIT and those courses in Mongolia, they they would be filled up very quickly. Because a lot of yeah, I as I say it it's very popular to want to study abroad.

Very, very nice. If if people wanted to follow you, uh, where can we find you on social media? Okay, so I would just come up on Facebook with my athlete name, Tino Tamir on Facebook. But on Instagram I'm I'm like this. with this social account name, Tinu Ne, which is T-E-N-U-N-N-E-E. That would be. Yeah. Thank you. So uh for those who are listening, uh

Make sure to follow Tenun. Did I say it right? Uh thanks again for uh being on the podcast. It was a pleasure speaking with you and learning more about you and and I wish you the best. Thank you for inviting me to do it.