Geoff Williams Aronson Stack Workshop
Posted: November 22nd, 2017, 1:28 pm
Our IBM Ring hosted Geoff for a lecture and workshop yesterday. I attended the workshop, and it consisted of Geoff walking us (there were four attendees) through his "Aronson Stack for Everybody".
At the end of it, starting from almost zero, I was able (from memory) to name the Aronson stack number of any card, and name the card at any number from 1 - 52. Note this is not the same as being so conversant with the stack as to be able to perform magic with it -- that will take much more practice, until the numbers and cards are directly associated with each other, without the intermediate step of the peg images.
The process is as follows:
1. Learn Geoff's associations from digits 1-0 to letters (1-t, 2-n, 3-m, 4-r, 5-l, 6-g, 7-k, 8-f, 9-p or b, 0-z or s). For each of these, he gives a way to associate them so you don't have to brute-force memorize this list (for example, an "M" has 3 downstrokes; "Zero" starts with Z; etc.) Note that this is not quite the "standard" mnemonic association set, but is a simplified version with a few changes. (I was familiar with, but not fluent with, the standard set -- this is why I said I was starting from almost zero.)
2. Drill for a while, where Geoff presents words, and you answer back with the number they represent, and he presents numbers, and you answer back with appropriate words.
3. Learn the associations between court cards and letters, and suits and letters:
Jack - J; Queen - H (from Her Highness); King - appropriate suit noun (KS is always a Spade, KC is always a Club, etc.)
Spade = T (a Spade has one tip on top; t=1 in the mnemonic system); Heart = N (Heart has 2 humps on top; N = 2); Clubs = M; Diamonds = R
3. Drill with cards and words, as above. Geoff would guide us to use particular words that show up in his images.
4. Now go to the meat of the system. His book shows, in stack order, pictures that associate stack numbers with playing cards. For example, the first image is a picture of a foot with a jet airliner flying out of a toe. Toe-Jet -> T (stack number = 1) and J-T -> Jack of Spades. The JS is card #1 in the Aronson stack. The pictures are in color and are clear and vivid and memorable. Some are PG-13 or gross (but this is standard practice in such things, to make them easier to recall). There are only 38 pictures, because in a few cases, he's come up with an image that incorporates more than one Stack Number- Card pair. One such image is Ray-Nun-Ton-Lion-Pear. In this image, "Nun" represents the playing card 2 of Hearts in the pair "Ray-Nun" and it represents the stack number 22 in the pair "Nun-Lion". In all cases where an image can be ambiguous like this (where a single word can be interpreted as either a number or card), the image covers it and uses it both ways. In all cases where their is a single pair associated with an image (like the Toe-Jet mentioned above), each word in the pair can only represent a card or a number as appropriate.
5. Drill for a bit. Geoff would prompt with one word of an image pair, and we'd recall the image and give the other word. Or he'd do one word of one of the sets that included a sequence, and we'd give all the remaining members of the sequence.
6. At this point, you know the stack. We took a written test where, for each of the 52 pairs, we'd get one word of a stack #/playing card association, and would have to give the other. The images were vivid enough that it was easy to recall them all, and with the images, you can work out the stack number and card associated. For example, one prompt was Fay. Fay is a waitress, with a bad attitude. She doesn't care if your order is correct. She's chewing gum while she serves you. Fay-Gum. Fay is #8, gum is 6 of Clubs. Another prompt was Club. The club was smashing someone's knee, probably someone who borrowed money and wasn't paying it back. Knee-Club. #2 is King of Clubs.
7. Then Geoff did some work with stacked deck. Some tricks, and he showed some marking techniques that help you manage the stack. And talked some about breather crimps, which he uses to reset the stack to "zero".
The workshop was $50, and lasted 3 hours. In addition to the tutoring, you got a printed copy of the book (70 pages, full color, 8-1/2 x 11 -- it is Print on Demand, but very professional looking), a disc with a PDF of the book (useful so you can print out the worksheets and practice without writing in the book; and so you can put the images on your phone or tablet and practice that way), and a Workshop CD disc that includes: software that drills you on the stack; information on marking a deck to help manage the stack in performance; and assorted tricks using the stack (for example, a clean ACAAN where the [usually] necessary cut/displacement is completely covered and flies by).
If you don't know the Aronson stack and want to learn it, this is a very good deal should you get the opportunity to take advantage of it. If you want to learn the Tamariz stack, go ahead and sit in the workshop, and then buy the equivalent book/disc that Geoff has for the Tamariz stack. It will take some independent work afterwards to learn that stack, but much of the information and all of the techniques from this Aronson workshop will transfer over.
The only downside I can see to Geoff's system is that knowing the standard mnemonic associations between the digits and letters is very useful, and this will screw that up somewhat.
BTW, his lecture is really good as well.
At the end of it, starting from almost zero, I was able (from memory) to name the Aronson stack number of any card, and name the card at any number from 1 - 52. Note this is not the same as being so conversant with the stack as to be able to perform magic with it -- that will take much more practice, until the numbers and cards are directly associated with each other, without the intermediate step of the peg images.
The process is as follows:
1. Learn Geoff's associations from digits 1-0 to letters (1-t, 2-n, 3-m, 4-r, 5-l, 6-g, 7-k, 8-f, 9-p or b, 0-z or s). For each of these, he gives a way to associate them so you don't have to brute-force memorize this list (for example, an "M" has 3 downstrokes; "Zero" starts with Z; etc.) Note that this is not quite the "standard" mnemonic association set, but is a simplified version with a few changes. (I was familiar with, but not fluent with, the standard set -- this is why I said I was starting from almost zero.)
2. Drill for a while, where Geoff presents words, and you answer back with the number they represent, and he presents numbers, and you answer back with appropriate words.
3. Learn the associations between court cards and letters, and suits and letters:
Jack - J; Queen - H (from Her Highness); King - appropriate suit noun (KS is always a Spade, KC is always a Club, etc.)
Spade = T (a Spade has one tip on top; t=1 in the mnemonic system); Heart = N (Heart has 2 humps on top; N = 2); Clubs = M; Diamonds = R
3. Drill with cards and words, as above. Geoff would guide us to use particular words that show up in his images.
4. Now go to the meat of the system. His book shows, in stack order, pictures that associate stack numbers with playing cards. For example, the first image is a picture of a foot with a jet airliner flying out of a toe. Toe-Jet -> T (stack number = 1) and J-T -> Jack of Spades. The JS is card #1 in the Aronson stack. The pictures are in color and are clear and vivid and memorable. Some are PG-13 or gross (but this is standard practice in such things, to make them easier to recall). There are only 38 pictures, because in a few cases, he's come up with an image that incorporates more than one Stack Number- Card pair. One such image is Ray-Nun-Ton-Lion-Pear. In this image, "Nun" represents the playing card 2 of Hearts in the pair "Ray-Nun" and it represents the stack number 22 in the pair "Nun-Lion". In all cases where an image can be ambiguous like this (where a single word can be interpreted as either a number or card), the image covers it and uses it both ways. In all cases where their is a single pair associated with an image (like the Toe-Jet mentioned above), each word in the pair can only represent a card or a number as appropriate.
5. Drill for a bit. Geoff would prompt with one word of an image pair, and we'd recall the image and give the other word. Or he'd do one word of one of the sets that included a sequence, and we'd give all the remaining members of the sequence.
6. At this point, you know the stack. We took a written test where, for each of the 52 pairs, we'd get one word of a stack #/playing card association, and would have to give the other. The images were vivid enough that it was easy to recall them all, and with the images, you can work out the stack number and card associated. For example, one prompt was Fay. Fay is a waitress, with a bad attitude. She doesn't care if your order is correct. She's chewing gum while she serves you. Fay-Gum. Fay is #8, gum is 6 of Clubs. Another prompt was Club. The club was smashing someone's knee, probably someone who borrowed money and wasn't paying it back. Knee-Club. #2 is King of Clubs.
7. Then Geoff did some work with stacked deck. Some tricks, and he showed some marking techniques that help you manage the stack. And talked some about breather crimps, which he uses to reset the stack to "zero".
The workshop was $50, and lasted 3 hours. In addition to the tutoring, you got a printed copy of the book (70 pages, full color, 8-1/2 x 11 -- it is Print on Demand, but very professional looking), a disc with a PDF of the book (useful so you can print out the worksheets and practice without writing in the book; and so you can put the images on your phone or tablet and practice that way), and a Workshop CD disc that includes: software that drills you on the stack; information on marking a deck to help manage the stack in performance; and assorted tricks using the stack (for example, a clean ACAAN where the [usually] necessary cut/displacement is completely covered and flies by).
If you don't know the Aronson stack and want to learn it, this is a very good deal should you get the opportunity to take advantage of it. If you want to learn the Tamariz stack, go ahead and sit in the workshop, and then buy the equivalent book/disc that Geoff has for the Tamariz stack. It will take some independent work afterwards to learn that stack, but much of the information and all of the techniques from this Aronson workshop will transfer over.
The only downside I can see to Geoff's system is that knowing the standard mnemonic associations between the digits and letters is very useful, and this will screw that up somewhat.
BTW, his lecture is really good as well.