geometry and memory

In high school I got a C in Geometry and an A the next semester in Algebra 2. The algebra 2 class seemed like kindergarten to me. I had the same teacher for both classes and she was kind of confused at why I was suddenly a math whiz from one month to another.  She gave us an outline for the semester and I was two weeks ahead on my homework and getting paid to tutor this other girl in class.

The thing is, all the Geometry tests were about memorizing the theorems and postulates. And memorizing stuff is NOT my thing. I tried. I read the damn things over and over. I made cassette tapes and played them back to myself. I spent a lot of time on them but I couldn't remember them. I don't remember words well. I can remember concepts, but words are practically impossible.

Maybe it's a short term memory thing. 

When I'm programming something new that's kind of complicated. I will get to the end and can't remember what I just did or what process I used to accomplish what I just finished.  I have to go back and read over the code to figure out how I did it. And if I were going to do it again and didn't have my notes to look at I'd have to start from scratch and re-create the whole thing over again becasue I might not be able to even remember the concept of what I had just done.

I can't remember words very well either. I remember the meaning of something that somebody just said. But if you asked me to repeat it back word for word there's a 99% chance that I'd be guessing if it was more than three words long. If it were a common string of words I might guess correctly, but it would still be a guess.

When I'm learning a new move in jiu-jitsu, they go over it step by step several times. Then they say to go ahead and practice and 90% of the time I can't remember what position the move starts in. I can remember the end of the move, the part I just saw, but I can't remember how to start. I tend to remember things as "this connects to that". But I have to do it step by step and can't really see the whole thing. I see it as a series of connections - from this move you go here, and from this move you go here - and that's the way it makes the most sense to me. If you tell me to just try it without thinking about it I'm likely to just stare at you cause I don't know how to do that. I feel like I can remember little parts and put them together and it makes something bigger, but the big thing is still always just a bunch of little parts put together.  Until you've drilled it a lot of times at which point it just turns into muscle memory. But that's completely different.