Free Training

Learn how to make memory techniques work for you!

Every month, we offer free memory training with an experienced mnemonic at a library in downtown Toronto. To register, contact@canadianmemorychampionships.ca

The type of training we offer can vary depending on people’s needs and interests.

However, we will try to get beginners on the right track to participate in upcoming memory competitions.

If you’re an experienced mnemonic and would like to help train people to use memory techniques in your locality, please let us know and we’ll add your city to the list of places where we offer free training.

Jan.17, 2026 Memory Workshop:

Here’s the latest sample of what we do in a memory workshop:

Tony and Simon met at the Toronto Library on Jan. 17, 2026, in a glass pod on the Library’s second floor. It was the first time we met. Tony considers himself at the beginning of his journey as a mnemonic. He has seen a few online tutorial about how this works. He has decided to work on building a number system that would be built on basic images. Like a tree trunk for a number one, a swan for number 2, etc, he understands this system is limited however, if he likes that system, it is possible to go with it from 0 to 99. It’s certainly not the most common way to do it but it has been done with good results. Doing what you want, what you think will work is important.

With beginner, it’s best to do simple exercises not requiring much in terms of preparation or system. And so we created a journey in the library and memorized a list of words using it: we had much fun with the car-foot association at one of our shared loci, where I had transformed this into a Flintstones car, while Tony visualized feet stepping out of the car.

Tony was interested in learning what benefit he could expect from training as a mnemonic. I mentioned to him that the ability to focus was one area where he certainly could expect to see improvements. I also explained that to improve one’s memory, you have to practice and increase your will power. And this led to further discussion about motivation. A good memory is also associated with more discipline in oral hygiene and therefore in keeping one’s teeth healthy. And so there are indeed unexpected benefits to memorizing long digits of number such as pi. Tony seemed glad to begin his journey as a mnemonic.

Dec 6, 2025 Memory Workshop:

This was the only workshop before the 2025 CMC competition and unfortunately, Mark, the only person to attend, wasn’t able to participate in the competition, a couple weeks later. However, something interesting occurred during the workshop: as I showed him the 3000 digits of pi that was the upper limit of the competition (a full page of numbers and then a bit of the next page), he asked me if I had memorized these. I said yes, but a long time ago and the best I had ever achieved was a score of 98%. And so he asked for the sheet with the pi numbers on it and asked if he could try and test me as I had intended to do in the memory competition. I said fine.

I wasn’t sure I would succeed because I hadn’t prepared for that and it had been a couple of weeks since the last time I had revised the number quickly. So, he came up with the 10 digits: 2133475741 and asked me for the next 2. After a couple of seconds, I told him that I had recognized the place on my journey where that number was. And I was able to give him the next two. Impressed, mark asked for two digits before that and that too, I was able to give him promptly and correctly. He then informed me that he was “blown away” by this. But there is in fact not much to this memory feat. Yet, it is still very impressive to a beginner. We continued the meetup by trying to figure what might be the best memory technique for him to commit to, given his interests. We also went through a bit of a words memorization exercise to highlight the technique used for that.