Memory coach

Told you about myself, so you under­s­tand who you pay your money to ☺︎

Masterclass on memory improvement at the Educational and Scientific Center “Institute of Biology and Medicine”
Mas­ter­class on mem­ory improve­ment at the Edu­ca­tional and Sci­en­tific Cen­ter “Insti­tute of Biol­ogy and Medicine” 2014, Kyiv (Ukraine)

Who I am

Bogdan Rudenko is the founder and memory trainer of the Memory Development Center
Bogdan Rudenko is the founder and trainer of the Mem­ory Devel­op­ment Center, Ph.D. in Phi­los­o­phy of Sci­ence. For the past 19 years teaches mnemon­ics: helps peo­ple mem­orize infor­ma­tion.
Since 2005, he taught indi­vid­u­ally: he devel­oped meth­ods and looked for an approach to peo­ple of dif­fer­ent psy­cho­types. Since 2012, he teaches groups and trains com­pa­nies to help more peo­ple.

I teach

I teach peo­ple to mem­orize word for word, let­ter for let­ter, num­ber for num­ber at a rate of 200 char­ac­ters in 10 min­utes: the pre­ci­sion and speed are like reg­u­lar note-tak­ing, only you write right into your brain. Then you deter­mine the length of time the infor­ma­tion is stored in your head and you move through mem­ory as you would through com­puter files.

mnemonic device, or mem­ory device, is any learn­ing tech­nique that aids infor­ma­tion reten­tion or retrie­val (remem­ber­ing) in the human mem­ory for bet­ter under­stand­ing

Bogdan Rudenko teaches how to memorize abstract information
We mem­orize units of infor­ma­tion, num­bers are just an exam­ple. A unit of infor­ma­tion can be a num­ber, a word, a phrase, or an entire para­graph

School

Since child­hood, I have been inter­ested in meth­ods of intel­lec­tual devel­op­ment.

I stud­ied at the Gym­na­sium of Ori­en­tal Lan­guages in Kyiv, the only place in Ukraine where Chi­nese was taught. Back then it was a board­ing school. In Soviet times, that was the name given to “closed edu­ca­tional insti­tu­tions for the in-depth study of par­tic­u­lar dis­ci­plines with stu­dents stay­ing around the clock.”

We were fully sup­ported, but our par­ents still gave us pocket money. In 1991 I used the money saved to buy one of the first books on speed-read­ing in the USSR—Andreev and Khro­mov’s text­book “Learn to Read Quickly.”

I was 11 years old and wanted to spend the money on ice cream and soda. But the desire to read faster and under­s­tand more deeply was stronger. Then I mas­tered mnemon­ics and it always helped me out later on.

From childhood, Bogdan was interested in methods of intellectual development
There were no com­put­ers or printers then, so we drew by hand. In 30 years every­thing has turned yel­low, but I cher­ish these sheets

Jurisprudence

In 2001 I grad­u­ated from the Fac­ulty of Law of the Taras Shevchenko National Uni­ver­sity of Kyiv and for 10 years I headed the legal depart­ments of com­pa­nies.

Mne­mon­ics helped me stand out from the rest, for whom “the lawyer is not the one who remem­bers the law, but the one who knows where to look it up.”

In courts, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the other side first write their claim or objec­tion and then read it out at the hear­ing.

Judges some­times have fun:

  • Are you say­ing I can’t read?!
  • No, Your Honor, of course not!
  • Then why are you read­ing to me what I’ve already read? Or are you telling me I haven’t pre­pared for the hear­ing?

After such a psy­cho­log­i­cal attack you usu­ally break down. Judges don’t do this out of spite. They think they are tem­per­ing young lawy­ers. But it is shame­ful to say that for 20 years they have been recit­ing the same text about the rights and obli­ga­tions of the par­ties. Although this para­graph can be mem­orized in 5 min­utes.

In courts, I oper­ated with sums, dates, terms of con­tracts, and arti­cle num­bers without any paper­work. This greatly increased my cred­i­bil­ity.

The Mag­i­cal Num­ber Seven, Plus or Minus Two. It is often inter­preted to argue that the num­ber of objects an aver­age human can hold in short-term mem­ory is 7 ± 2. This has occa­sion­ally been referred to as Miller’s law

When I was young, I used to fool around. When my com­pany was an investor in impor­tant nego­ti­a­tions, I assessed the risks. The other party would come in with a team of lawy­ers. They were all wear­ing ties and car­ry­ing brie­f­cases, dili­gently writ­ing down every word.

And then I walk in empty-handed: no pen, no note­book. The other side relaxes. They see the head of the legal depart­ment, who was invited for appear­ance. Dif­fi­cult nego­ti­a­tions and he only lis­tens. They can sell any­thing they want.

But at the end, I took the floor: “In para­graph 12, you said so-and-so. And in para­graph 47—so-and-so. It con­tra­dicts para­graph 32, where you said this and that. Besides, it’s not clear how it agrees with this and that in para­graph 28.”

And so method­i­cally con­tin­ued with each state­ment. After that, their faces and atti­tudes changed. They no longer wanted to sell.

Philosophy of Science

In 2010, I went to the post­grad­u­ate pro­gram at the Fac­ulty of Phi­los­o­phy of the Taras Shevchenko National Uni­ver­sity of Kyiv.

I had a depart­ment of the­o­ret­i­cal and prac­ti­cal phi­los­o­phy. There worked the best spe­cial­ists in gnose­ol­ogy and epis­te­mol­ogy, meta­physics and ontol­ogy, hermeneu­tics and phe­nomenol­ogy, philo­soph­i­cal anthro­pol­ogy, social phi­los­o­phy, struc­tural­ism, and philo­soph­i­cal the­o­ries of com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

These are new fields for me, I am a lawyer by edu­ca­tion. And the post­grad­u­ate stu­dents were philoso­phers. Before that, they were full-time stu­dents in the Fac­ulty of Phi­los­o­phy: 4 years of under­grad­u­ate and 2 years of grad­u­ate school. Their the­ses were almost fin­ished dis­ser­ta­tions.

Without mne­mon­ics I would have been lost for sure: I would not have passed my entrance exams and Ph.D. exams, and I would not have been able to par­tic­i­pate in depart­ment meet­ings and sci­en­tific dis­cus­sions. And I cer­tainly would not have defended my dis­ser­ta­tion on the phi­los­o­phy of sci­ence.

Bogdan Rudenko defends his dissertation
At the defense of his dis­ser­ta­tion at the Taras Shevchenko National Uni­ver­sity of Kyiv. 2014
The main secret is not to stand out too much. If you strut around the class­room and recite by heart, the aca­demics will con­sider it imper­ti­nence and pun­ish the inso­lent. So take your papers and stand behind the pul­pit. But when you speak, look the mem­bers of the Aca­demic Coun­cil in the eye, watch the reac­tion of the audi­ence, and address them by name if you answer ques­tions. You can do that because the mate­rial is in your head.
Your super­power is a com­bi­na­tion of ordi­nary and extraor­di­nary abil­i­ties. On the face of it, you’re just like every­one else. But you burn with what you love so much that you don’t even stare at a piece of paper.

Memory Masterclasses

I’ve been teach­ing mnemon­ics for a long time.

Already in 2005, I was teach­ing indi­vid­u­ally: I devel­oped meth­ods and looked for an approach to peo­ple of dif­fer­ent psy­cho­types.

Since 2012 I’ve been teach­ing groups and train­ing com­pa­nies to help more peo­ple.

One of the first master classes on improving memory
Mas­ter­class on mem­ory improve­ment in Kyiv (Ukraine). 2012
One of the first mas­ter­classes. Back then there were no hip­ster cafes, cre­ative spaces, co-work­ing spaces, and other beau­ties. We rented the assem­bly halls of Soviet insti­tu­tions. But it was in the cen­ter of the city and con­ve­nient for peo­ple to get to.
Masterclass on improving memory in Kyiv (Ukraine)
Mas­ter­class on mem­ory improve­ment in Kyiv (Ukraine). 2013
Finally a modern inte­rior, pro­jec­tors, and sound sys­tem for pro­fes­sional per­for­mances.
Masterclass on improving memory in Kyiv (Ukraine)
Mas­ter­class on mem­ory improve­ment in Kyiv (Ukraine). 2013
It’s nice that peo­ple came after work to lis­ten to me. They could have been relax­ing at home in front of the TV.
Masterclass on improving memory in Kyiv (Ukraine)
Mas­ter­class on mem­ory improve­ment in Kyiv (Ukraine). 2013
Nice hall in an old house on Podol (Kyiv dis­trict), but small for my mas­ter­classes. Peo­ple were even stand­ing on the bal­cony back then. Recently passed by and on this place, I saw a store. It’s good, at least there are still pho­tos.
Masterclass on improving memory in Kyiv (Ukraine)
Mas­ter­class on mem­ory improve­ment in Kyiv (Ukraine). 2014
All in all not bad. It’s a pity the hall is nar­row and long. Even with a micro­phone, I could not hear well.
Masterclass on improving memory in Donetsk (Ukraine)
Mas­ter­class on mem­ory improve­ment in Donetsk (Ukraine). 2014
On the day I arrived, they started shoot­ing. Although there was no mil­i­tary action yet, ordi­nary peo­ple were no longer inter­ested in improv­ing mem­ory as in peace­time. In a good way, it should have been can­celed. But my clients were not ordi­nary peo­ple—they had already bought tickets and wanted to par­tic­i­pate.
Masterclass on improving memory in Dnipro (Ukraine)
Mas­ter­class on mem­ory improve­ment in Dnipro (Ukraine). 2014
First time in Dnipro. At that time it was still Dne­propetro­vsk. Hall of spir­i­tual devel­op­ment and other eso­ter­ics. It went well, the incense sticks did not inter­fere.
Masterclass on improving memory in Lviv (Ukraine)
Mas­ter­class on mem­ory improve­ment in Lviv (Ukraine). 2014
Very pos­i­tive peo­ple. The peo­ple in Lviv greeted me very warmly.
Masterclass on improving memory in Kharkiv (Ukraine)
Mas­ter­class on mem­ory improve­ment in Kharkiv (Ukraine). 2014
The host­ess dec­o­rated the room her­self and it turned out very cozy.
Masterclass on improving memory in Odesa (Ukraine)
Mas­ter­class on mem­ory improve­ment in Odesa (Ukraine). 2014
I liked the place. It’s in the alley between Dery­ba­sivska and Hrets’ka. When I showed my kids around Odesa in 2018, there was already a caterer there. You can’t have it any other way in a gas­tro­nomic cen­ter.
Masterclass on improving memory in Kyiv (Ukraine)
Mas­ter­class on mem­ory improve­ment in Kyiv (Ukraine). 2014
Again in the same place, because it was con­ve­niently located. But in this hall, I was dead after 3 hours of per­for­mance. I didn’t imme­di­ately under­s­tand why that was. And then I noticed that there were no win­dows in the hall. They had some­how clev­erly dis­guised the base­ment. They made win­dow masks and you couldn’t tell right away. Air con­di­tion­ing and good light are no sub­sti­tute for real win­dows, it’s psy­cho­log­i­cally dif­fi­cult without them.
Masterclass on improving memory in Zaporizhzhia (Ukraine)
Mas­ter­class on mem­ory improve­ment in Zapor­izhzhia (Ukraine). 2014
Almost didn’t see the city, I should come again.
Masterclass on improving memory in Kyiv (Ukraine)
Mas­ter­class on mem­ory improve­ment in Kyiv (Ukraine). 2014
It’s okay to work there at the lap­top. But it’s not very good for per­for­mances.
Masterclass on improving memory in Cherkasy (Ukraine)
Mas­ter­class on mem­ory improve­ment in Cherkasy (Ukraine). 2014
It’s sum­mer, every­one’s at the river and bar­be­cues. But that doesn’t stop us.
Masterclass on improving memory in Dnipro (Ukraine)
Mas­ter­class on mem­ory improve­ment in Dnipro (Ukraine). 2014
Dne­propetro­vsk again. This time rep­re­sen­ta­tives of local schools of mem­ory improve­ment came to see a vis­it­ing guest. I don’t mind, let them copy.

Phenomenal Memory

So that peo­ple would not get tired at the mas­ter­classes, I some­times showed “phe­nom­e­nal mem­ory won­ders.”

It was only later that Super­hu­manThe Brain, and other the­atri­cal pro­duc­tions appeared on TV.

I had to per­form live, in unfa­mil­iar places, some­times in front of an unfriendly audi­ence. You can’t cheat there, you can’t re-record, you can’t get your peo­ple involved.

Phenomenal memory in Lviv, part. 1
Phe­nom­e­nal mem­ory. 2014, Lviv (Ukraine)
In Lviv, we laid out sev­eral dozen iden­ti­cal coins. The heads and tails of one coin were no dif­fer­ent from the heads and tails of the other coin.
Phenomenal memory in Lviv, part. 2
Phe­nom­e­nal mem­ory. 2014, Lviv (Ukraine)
Peo­ple flip coins to get a ran­dom sequence. That way they’re sure I won’t remem­ber in advance. I’m at the other end of the hall, so as not to be reproached for peeping.
Phenomenal memory in Lviv, part. 3
Phe­nom­e­nal mem­ory. 2014, Lviv (Ukraine)
I walk up and mem­orize the sequence.
Phenomenal memory in Lviv, part. 4
Phe­nom­e­nal mem­ory. 2014, Lviv (Ukraine)
I’ve seen peo­ple on the Inter­net try­ing to do some­thing like this. But their “coins” were either drawn on card­board, the size of a saucer. Or dif­fer­ent denom­i­na­tions, diam­e­ters, and years of issue. Then the coins stand out and it’s easy for the eye to cling to them.
And I had an acquain­tance who worked in a bank and man­aged to buy the new coins right in the mint’s pack­ag­ing. The coins are beau­ti­ful and look spec­tac­u­lar on a green table­cloth. But it makes it dras­ti­cally more dif­fi­cult: when every­thing is shiny and fused together, a lot of effort is spent on rec­og­niz­ing the coins them­selves.
Phenomenal memory in Lviv, part. 5
Phe­nom­e­nal mem­ory. 2014, Lviv (Ukraine)
Then I step back and recon­struct the sequence from mem­ory. I go in order from the first to the last coin. Then from the last to the first. I call by even and odd order num­bers. I can go line by line or col­umn by col­umn.
Phenomenal memory in Lviv, part. 6
Phe­nom­e­nal mem­ory. 2014, Lviv (Ukraine)
Peo­ple are scream­ing:
  • The fifth coin in the ninth col­umn!
  • Tails.
  • And what is the coin at the inter­sec­tion of the fourth row and the sev­enth col­umn?
  • Tails again.
  • The sixth in the bot­tom row, if you count from right to left?
  • Heads.
Phenomenal memory in Lviv, part. 7
Phe­nom­e­nal mem­ory. 2014, Lviv (Ukraine)
For a real show, it is impor­tant not to call the coins quickly. Peo­ple then have time to fol­low the coins on the ta­ble and there is even more exc­it­ing.

In Kharkiv, I called a girl from the hall to assist me. And then I turned to the wall.

The girl took turns giv­ing the floor to the audi­ence. The per­son calls the order num­ber, under which I have to mem­orize. And then says infor­ma­tion as com­pli­cated as he can come up with: hard to pro­nounce words in his native or for­eign lan­guage, rows of num­bers, and his name at the end. Then the next per­son, until the audi­ence is exhausted.

Phenomenal memory in Kharkiv, part. 1
Phe­nom­e­nal mem­ory. 2014, Kharkiv (Ukraine)
A freeze-frame from the video, so it’s a lit­tle blurry.
Phenomenal memory in Kharkiv, part. 2
Phe­nom­e­nal mem­ory. 2014, Kharkiv (Ukraine)
I am asked:
  • What was num­ber eigh­teen?
  • Quintessence, sim­u­lacrum, six hun­dred and twenty-seven thou­sand eight hun­dred and thirty-two, Vladimir.
  • And what did Snezhana say?
  • Eyjaf­jal­la­jöküdl, rhytidec­tomy, nine hun­dred and forty-three thou­sand five hun­dred and sev­enty-two. It was num­ber seven.
  • Cazuar?
  • It was num­ber four­teen. Cazuar fish. There’s also apolo­get­ics and five hun­dred and thirty-one thou­sand seven hun­dred and forty-six. Valera said.
Phenomenal memory in Kharkiv, part. 3
Phe­nom­e­nal mem­ory. 2014, Kharkiv (Ukraine)
Sin­cere emo­tion. Not like on TV: first the audi­ence applauds for half an hour on cam­era, then it is cut up and inserted in the right places dur­ing edit­ing. In life, it’s more hon­est: if you screw up, they throw rot­ten toma­toes at you; if you do well, peo­ple rejoice and come to the train­ing.

Memory training

And these are already closed train­ing in uni­ver­si­ties and cor­po­ra­tions. Com­pa­nies rarely allow pho­tog­ra­phy, but some­times it is pos­si­ble to make a good report.

Corporate memory training in EDC
Cor­po­rate mem­ory train­ing in “Eura­sia Drilling Com­pany Group.” 2013
Largest drilling com­pany, listed on the Lon­don Stock Exchange. Work­ing with TNK-BP, Shell, Dragon Oil, PETRONAS. I taught the guys from the Plan­n­ing, Report­ing, and Con­sol­i­dated Account­ing Depart­ment. Usu­ally, the bosses force the employ­ees to par­tic­i­pate in cor­po­rate train­ing. But here the employ­ees found me on their own, went to the man­age­ment, and got per­mis­sion to orga­nize mem­ory train­ing.
Corporate memory training at Colgate-Palmolive
Cor­po­rate mem­ory train­ing in “Col­gate-Pal­mo­live.” 2014, Kyiv (Ukraine)
A 13-bil­lion-dol­lar transcon­ti­nen­tal com­pany. It owns Col­gate, Pal­mo­live, Men­nen, Lady Speed Stick, Soft­soap, Pro­tex, Sor­riso, Koly­nos, Ajax, Axion, Sou­pline, Suavi­tel, and Fab brands. Hill’s pet food is also theirs. Not much to tell, just brag­ging ☺︎
Corporate memory training in Cherkasy
Cor­po­rate mem­ory train­ing in “IN DAN.” 2014, Cherkasy (Ukraine)
At the time it seemed that I had every­thing from account­ing firms to beauty salons and restau­rants. I ask about the specifics of the busi­ness to make up a train­ing pro­gram:
  • What does your hold­ing com­pany do? What do you trade-in and what ser­vices do you pro­vide?
  • We sell a wide range of goods. We also pro­duce fur­ni­ture. And... coffins.
Turned out to be a leader in the rit­ual mar­ket. They pro­duce elite prod­ucts—“Bent­ley” for those who have passed away. Stars, politi­cians, and other famous peo­ple are buried in their coffins.
Masterclass on improving memory at the Institute of Biology
Mas­ter­class on mem­ory improve­ment at the Edu­ca­tional and Sci­en­tific Cen­ter “Insti­tute of Biol­ogy and Medicine” 2014, Kyiv (Ukraine)
Win­ter, cold audi­to­rium, shabby walls. The guys were freez­ing, but they lis­tened to me. Now some of them work in the best research insti­tutes in Europe and Asia. I know, because we are friends on Face­book.
See Vasyl Mykytiuk
Masterсlass on improving memory at the Diplomatic Academy
Mas­ter­class “How to mem­orize for­eign words” at the Diplo­matic Academy of the Min­istry of For­eign Affairs. 2014, Kyiv (Ukraine)
When I was invited by their Depart­ment of For­eign Lan­guages, I had my doubts. Offi­cials go to the academy for a spe­cial­ized edu­ca­tion. A mas­ter’s degree in for­eign pol­icy helps one move up the career lad­der and gain the rank of a civil ser­vant. Diplo­mats, attachés, and embassy staff speak for­eign lan­guages as if they were native speak­ers. What am I going to teach them? But they liked it so much that instead of the planned 1.5 hours they held me for 3 hours.
Masterclass on improving memory at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv
Mas­ter­class on mem­ory improve­ment at the Taras Shevchenko National Uni­ver­sity of Kyiv. 2015, Ukraine
My native uni­ver­sity, a relaxed atmo­sphere. I turn away, they tell me, I mem­orize, then we check. When I mem­orized, I didn’t hesi­tate to sit on the ta­ble. It was nor­mal then, but now I look at the photo and feel embar­rassed.
Masterclass on improving memory at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute
Mas­ter­class on mem­ory improve­ment at the Kyiv Poly­tech­nic Insti­tute. 2015, Ukraine
The main tech­ni­cal uni­ver­sity in the coun­try, and I hadn’t been there before. Thanks to the mas­ter­class, I’ve been there.
Memory training in Kiev
Mem­ory train­ing. 2014, Kyiv (Ukraine)
We didn’t take pho­tos of the full two-day group train­ing. We left video tes­ti­mo­ni­als as a memento. This is a casual photo of me hand­ing out cer­tifi­cates. The best proof of the acquired skill is a phe­nom­e­nal mem­ory after the train­ing. But some­times peo­ple ask for a cer­tifi­cate to hang on the wall.
Corporate memory training in EMC
Cor­po­rate mem­ory train­ing in “Euro­pean met­al­lur­g­i­cal com­pany.” 2019
I haven’t per­formed live for a long time. But an indi­vid­ual client of mine asked me to do a train­ing for his com­pany. His com­pany has sev­eral branches, and peo­ple from dif­fer­ent coun­tries came to the train­ing.

I usu­ally had 20-30 peo­ple sit­t­ing in the audi­to­rium dur­ing a train­ing ses­sion. And I could man­age them eas­ily. If they asked for more, we added chairs. A lit­tle more or a lit­tle fewer peo­ple came, I didn’t notice any dif­fer­ence.

In 2015 I did an online train­ing ses­sion. And I real­ized that I was not pulling more than 12 peo­ple. I could see every face, I could tell by the expres­sion in their eyes what mis­takes were made, and I cor­rected them imme­di­ately. The involve­ment in the pro­cess is such that I need at least a week to recover.

And when I became con­vinced that peo­ple learn the skill faster in this for­mat, I’ve been try­ing to teach only online ever since.

At a reg­u­lar train­ing ses­sion, you can sit in the back. Here you can’t sit in the back, I see every­one

Who I help

Dif­fer­ent peo­ple need mem­ory for dif­fer­ent pur­poses. I help every­one:

Schoolchil­dren and stu­dents—upload text­books in their heads, study without cram­ming and pass exams without cribs.

For­eign lan­guage learn­ers—mem­orize 50-100 new for­eign words in 1 hour and learn a phrase­book dur­ing a flight to another coun­try.

Pro­fes­sion­als—mem­orize a col­lec­tion of offi­cial infor­ma­tion in 1 evening and learn a new pro­fes­sion in 3 weeks.

Busi­ness­men and exec­u­tives—keep in mind the infor­ma­tion about com­peti­tors and the his­tory of rela­tions with each client: names, birth­days, phone num­bers, con­nec­tions, habits, strengths, and weak­nesses.

Speak­ers in public—do not for­get the speech and the sequence of state­ments, speak without paper, and do not get lost in thought.

Peo­ple in every­day life—write infor­ma­tion down imme­di­ately in the brain. Do not for­get things, sched­ules, promises, requests, and errands. Remem­ber the names and faces of dozens of peo­ple the first time. Main­tain work­ing mem­ory until old age.

How I’m different

I make it so that peo­ple who have pre­vi­ously read mem­ory books and taken mem­ory courses can finally be able to mem­orize.

I help them stand out from those who use Google instead of mem­ory. Give you the oppor­tu­nity to mem­orize dif­fi­cult things. I prove that the skill of phe­nom­e­nal mem­ory can be mas­tered by any­one.

I want as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble to learn to use their mem­ory and there will be fewer empty-headed con­sumers of infor­ma­tion. To that end, I share free mem­ory Advice and talk about mem­ory for free in the Jour­nal and on You­Tube.

I can­not help those who are not ready to train and believe in “magic pills” for mem­ory.

I do not look at the age, sex, or sta­tus of the client. I sac­ri­fice decency for the sake of the result: I can eas­ily tell an obscene joke at the train­ing if it helps to explain the mate­rial clearly.

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“Come to the train­ing. I would be glad if I could be use­ful to you”

founder and memory trainer