Yudi Lesmana, Initiatior of First Memory Sport Competition in Indonesia

Oleh Bangkit Dana Setiawan

Editor -

BANDUNG, itb.ac.id - Nowadays, memorization is still considered as a process that is not easy to do. Such an assumption is refuted by the emergence of memory sport which is growing in the world. However in Indonesia, memory sport is still being something unfamiliar and strange. Motivated to introduce about memory sport in Indonesia, Yudi Lesmana, International Grand Master of Memory, intiated the first memory sport competition in Indonesia, named Indonesia Memory Championship (IMC 2014). This competition was held on Saturday (01/11/14) in Ballroom of Kompas Gramedia, Jakarta which has been legitimized by the World Memory Sports Council, the official organization of memory sport.

Forty-two participants involved in this competition. Participants were divided into three categories, namely kids (12 and under), junior (13-17 years), and adult (18-59 years). There are 10 fields of competition, namely remembering faces and names, numbers and digit binary random, random words, the order of playing cards, the date and year of fictitious events, etc.

Yudi said that this competition also aims to capture the seeds that have the potential to represent Indonesia in the memory sport international competition. In IMC 2014, obtained the overall winner form children categories, namely Fakhri Shafly Erland. Four winners along with Yudi will have the opportunity to compete in the most prestigious competition of memory, namely the 23th World Memory Championship in December 2014 which will be held in China. On that occasion, in addition to the winner, also obtained 30 arbitrators certified at level one. The arbiter is a term used for people who have the authority to inspect and prepare the matter and maintain a code of ethics in memory sport competition.

Yudi's Ambition to Develop Memory Sport in Indonesia


Yudi Lesmana, alumni of ITB Mining Engineering, is not the ordinary person in the memory sport. He has elaborated this field since he was in 14 years old. In 2003, he was named the International Grand Master of Memory. These last few years, it continues to strive to promote the memory sport in Indonesia, one of the way is organizing this competition. "I want to introduce the methods to test the standardized memory," said Yudi.

In addition, in August 2014 ago, he also published a book "Memorizing Like an Elephant". This book discusses the methods to remember easily. "Strategies for admission to schools should be writting a book," said Yudi. Not only effort horizontally to the society, he also does vertical effort. Currently he is working on Indonesia memory sport associations which was originally just non-government organization, now it is becoming  official organization. "The new announcement will come out this December," said Yudi. After Indonesia has official memory sports organization, Yudi hoped that next year Indonesia can organize world-class memory sport competitions, namely Indonesia International Open Memory Championship.


scan for download