Before starting with today's entry, I'd like to thank Sporcle.com for their generous mention in their Sporcle would like to thank... blog entry. Out of 4 items that are linked in the entry, Grey matters had the honor of being the only blog mentioned! If you're visiting from Sporcle, you'll probably be interested in the How Many Xs Can You Name In Y Minutes? post, as well as the Grey Matters Timed Quiz Generator.

Memory courses taught in books have been around for a long time. However, with internet video becoming a more accessible medium, you're able to find more memory videos as a result. Since so much of memory technique involves visualization, a visual way of teaching the techniques is a great advantage.

In this post, I'll share with you some of my favorite free online video memory courses.

Improve Your Memory (Derren Bridger): This is a course that starts with the basics, and is done simply as a presentation on a computer. If you have no familiarity with memory techniques, this is probably the best place to start:

How To Improve Your Memory (BBC): In contrast to the first video, here's a slickly-produced, professional 2006 documentary on memory techniques from the BBC, including several memory experts detailing their approaches. They also set up an entire area of their webpage dedicated to this special for further detail. This is the longest video of the group, at an hour and a half.

It's available online in 5 parts:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Tim's Memorization Course (“Tim”, a.k.a. Jediairmech): Once you've got the basics down, this 6-part course will help you remember a list of up to 40 items:



Frank Felberbaum's videos: Frank Felberbaum is the author of the book The Business of Memory: Fast Track Your Career with Supercharged Brainpower (the book pictures at the upper left of this post). The techniques here are more advanced, and deal with more specific situations, such as remembering information out of a book, or memorizing names and faces.

Arthur Bornstein's videos: While there are numerous memory videos on VideoJug, their resident memory expert is Arthur Bornstein, who has run the Borstein School of Memory Training in West Los Angeles since 1952. His videos cover a wide variety of memory situations.

Susan Percy's videos: These videos (in the Films and Articles section at the link) are from British memory trainer and expert Susan Percy, who works for Synergee Training and Consulting. Besides the techniques similar to those taught previously, you'll find a great new technique here for memorizing speeches. The basis of this approach was originally developed by another UK memory trainer, Tony Buzan.

What do you think of these courses? Have any helped you? Did I forget a free online video memory course that you believe should be here? Let me know in the comments!