Learning Maps and Memory Skills (Creating Success)

The word association is often mentioned in connection with memory. It is the central element in all memorizing techniques. The word is formed by the Latin word ad which means ˜to and socius which means ˜ally . So the word ˜association means: ˜things that are connected to each other .

In this instance it means we are trying to find words that are related to our original word. Our associations can be of many kinds. they can be synonyms , words that have the same meaning. They can be words that explain or define the original word. But they can also be of another kind altogether, words that have a starting-point in the original word but take a jump far away from it. While the first category is more universal, the second category is most subjective and personal and tied to each person s own experiences.

You may have played a group game where someone starts off with one word, then the next person says the first word they associate with it, then the next person in the group continues.

If the first person says ˜apple , you will instantly see an apple, like a flash, with your inner vision. If you don t grow apples or perhaps don t even like apples, you may just give a neutral word like ˜sorts or ˜tree . If you have many memories attached to apples, you may instead say ˜France or ˜Worcester or ˜custard or ˜computers or ˜New York or ˜Aunt Maggie . The last associations do indeed have the same starting-point but they take one step further away.

• Write (or draw) the object in the middle of a sheet of paper. Draw out lines from this point, as many as you need when you write down the words, each on one line.

• Write all the words that come into your mind, even words you think are crazy or unrelated! Don t make any attempt at order, just write the words randomly as they occur to you. The point is to write down as many words as possible, to catch them in the quick flow of association flashes in your head. Don t censor and don t exclude any words! Those odd words may just be the ones that give you the best ideas later on, or that personal point of view that makes your article or speech memorable to the readers.

• Don t worry about where you write them. If you start classifying or try to find logical connections at this stage you will lose time, a lot of good words will vanish and never be put on paper. Let your associations flow freely on to your paper. Just draw a new line for each new word and add as many as possible, no matter what they are or even if you get many words meaning the same thing. Those could be the words that give you a whole series of new words. The only rule at this stage is abundance .

• Don t avoid words that involve your feelings, or very personal words. Those who try to find a structure at an early stage will lose too many words and ideas. Most of us have been trained to think logically from the very beginning of a writing process and that may hamper us the first couple of times we try this technique, but don t give up! Each skill has its own time and place in the process.

• Look at the picture of a sailing boat. Use about five to seven minutes for the first stage in the process, ie to let out all your free associations connected to sailing.

• If at any stage you get stuck, you only have to draw a couple of new lines somewhere from an existing word and the process will start all over again.

This is one side of the use of associations. Another and more important use in connection with the memorizing technique is the ability to make a completely new image by combining two words. Here are pairs of words that you can use to practise this ability.

example: sandal “rose

1. make a sandal that smells like a rose

2. tread among the roses with one s sandals on

3. attach roses to your sandals

4. paint a rose on the sandals

5. roses that are running around wearing sandals

As you can see, it is not necessary to keep to reality! You can create anything with your imagination as long as your images contain both words, however crazy the connection is.

exercise

Make at least four or five images each of the following pairs:

biscuit “ car

feather “ house

bed “ fish

basket “ water

sail “ paper clip

The importance of an exercise like this is to help you ˜let go . It is important that you make use of your imagination and childishness. It is this ability to get new associations quickly that will help you to create the ˜spiral that binds together the two piles we talked about earlier.