It took me years to achieve complete fluency with anything like this that required cold memorization.
My brain just isn't wired NOT to 'think' things through. It's a real pain.
A bigger pain, though, is the stupid (IMO) emphasis that our educational system often places on fluency with math facts. Because that isn't "mathematics" but far too many mathy kids wrongly label themselves "stupid at math" before they have ever really even SEEN any mathematics...
all because they can't do the **#$%^ed "Mad Minutes" or whatever one wishes to call this torture-fest.
High enough WM and processing speed means you don't NEED to memorize them. I have a PhD that says so.
