A total of 345 participants at the Indian National Memory Championship held in the city on Sunday proved that mind games are as fun as outdoor sports.
The memory game that began with remembering random 80 words divided into four rows of 20 each, caught the attention of most players. While some remembered the words and not the order in which they were given in the respective rows, others remembered less than 10 words. The difficulty levels were different for each age group, including children below 12 years of age, juniors between 13 and 17 years of age and adults between 18 and 59 years. The competition, which started at 12 noon at Jala Vihar on Necklace Road, went on till late night with contestants being tested in 10 challenging categories.
Phill Chambers, Chief Arbiter of World Memory Sports Council, David Zhang, President of World Memory Sports Council Asia-Pascific region inaugurated the event. The winners in the event can participate in the World Memory Championship event.
Addressing the gathering, Mr. Chambers asked the children to sharpen their mind using memory tests on a daily basis. “It’s better to train young. Adults should start a daily practice routine and put in a good number of hours into training,” Mr. Chambers added.
Mr. Zhag asked the Indian participants to apply for the world championship. It’s for the third time that the city hosted the national championship. In India, eight such championships have been held so far.
As the event progressed, the participants were given spreadsheets of eight columns with binary numbers to memorise and replicate. They were also given random names attached to photographs of people to memorise. For the onlookers, the competition looked complicated and the goal seemed unattainable. But Jayasimha, President of the World Memory Sports Council India explained to The Hindu saying, “The key to memory is about finding patterns. Memorising and replicating is a dynamic exercise for which aptitude can be developed in the course of time”.
Each of the trained participants in the event kept repeating the numbers to form patterns in their mind for them to replicate.
The event proved that anyone with a good memory could participate and enjoy the evening. However, some centres in the city offer daily coaching to sharpen memory power, Mr. Jaysimha said.
