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Skill and Success: The Careers of Nellie Bly and F. Matthias Alexander — 3 Comments

  1. I love comparisons like this. It’s great that Nellie had a goal, and worked towards it. Some Alexander technique teachers may say this is a form of “end-gaining”, but I would disagree. It was a goal, just as F.M.Alexander had a goal. Thanks, Robert

  2. I don’t know whether you have ever read F M Alexander’s little autobiographical sketch (in ‘Articles and Lectures’, published by Mouritz). His determination and his wilful ignoring of well-meaning and not so well-meaning advice is quite striking. This from page 236: “I gave consideration to and asked advice in the matter of deciding definitely whether I should relinquish my career as a reciter and teach my technique. My decision was for the latter, a decision I will ever have reason to be thankful for. The asking of advice meant, of course, the expression of the opinion of the advisers and all of these…were of the opinion that I courting failure to embark on the career of a teacher of a method that was unfamiliar and, indeed, opposed in principle to known and widely accepted methods of breathing, vocalization, physical culture and the like…But I had yet to experience the most trying and wasteful of difficulties, arising from jealousy, envy, prejudice and wilful misrepresentation of the many, who recognize in something that is new and with which they are unacquainted, knowledge that reveals the flaws in what they believe and advocate.”
    All the best,
    Peter

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