How Can I Memorize a Complex Series of Folds?
The answer is so obvious I should not have to write it down, but if you are reading this section I am going to confirm your most likely guess for a technique to memorize a long and perhaps complex series of folds. Fold your piece. Do it again. Repeat.
Begin a piece with the instructions. After a few pieces are done, start without the instructions and see how far you get. When you get to a point where you are stuck, take a peek at the instructions, just enough to get you back on track. Do it again, and the next time start from scratch and see how far you get without the instructions.
Select a piece which you like, or want to make so it can be gifted to friends, family, or even strangers, someone you'd like to meet. Some simple pieces are kept by friends because they are a pleasing shape - and everybody likes a gift. If you have memorized it you can make one on demand anywhere you are. Your friends will be amazed at your ability to remember "so many steps". All you do is take one step at a time.
One of my friends makes rings out of dollar bills, and gifts them to wait staff. Most of the time they are welcome.
Innovation
While you are folding without the instructions and seeing how far you can get, is also a good time to explore alternate paths to your end product. As you make more of the same piece, try variations to "make it your own" - specific design features that are not on the original instructions, but can make it look nicer in the finished piece. Innovation in this sense can be a small detail or a radical new piece.
An example of easy variations is the "dollar bill ring." It is usually made with the "1" on top of the "jewel" in the finished ring. The "1" is expected to be at one end of the dollar bill folded into a narrow strip. If however you start with making a strip going down the cetner of the back of the dollar bill, the small square that forms the jewel can look like the face of Ganesha, or Ganesh, the Indian deity with the head of an elephant on a human body. There are two eyes and a trunk curling down the center. Other features can be highlighted, but you have to look closely to find them. The 10 dollar bill and highter denominations has the numerals printed in a color shifting ink https://www.uscurrency.gov/sites/default/files/downloadable-materials/files/en/dollars-in-detail-guide-en.pdf . The color shifting ink can be an attractive "top" or "jewel" on the ring. I'm usually too cheap to use anything other than a George Washington one dollar bill. If the design ever changes, or when the paper converts to plastic in some future form of currency as is the case with many international currencies, I'll have to stock up on the paper bills much as classic Coke drinkers hoarded their beverage when it was ending production of their favorite drink.
Serendipity
Without the directions to follow, sometimes the folding can lead you to a lucky surprise. Also in the dollar bill folding, there is a shirt-and-tie design. Purely by accident and without looking at the directions, I made some extra folds that added a nice pattern to the shoulders, similar to the stitched decorations on the shoulders of a western style shirt. These types of customizations are unique to my dollar bill shirt and tie pieces, and can be thought of as a signature feature. It's the shirt on the left in the poster https://ourigami.blogspot.com/2014/03/conference-poster-credit.html. The standard shirt and tie has no triangular decoration below the tie up to the shoulders.
