I stumbled onto this photo of Annie Oakley and couldn’t stop thinking about the amazing ability it must take to hit a target behind you, something she did in all her performances. As any marksman will tell you, their profession requires the ability to be completely still, without any undue tension. A little like a cat that waits for it’s prey. Easy for a cat, perhaps, but rare in human beings.
Shooting backwards takes things to a whole new level, one that very few people have ever achieved.
Annie Oakley was rightly famous for her shooting skills. She joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West touring show in 1885, performing in many American cities, and in Europe before royalty and other heads of state. Audiences were astounded to see her shooting out a cigar from her husband’s hand or splitting a playing-card edge-on at 30 paces. Not to mention shooting backwards. She even shot the ashes off a cigarette held by then prince and future kaiser Wilhelm II! One of history’s great “what if’s” will always be how the 20th century would have played out had she missed that shot in 1890.
I think F. Matthias Alexander, the developer of the Alexander Technique would have been fascinated by her skill, for the same reason he went to see circus performers whenever they came to London because he knew he would see good “use” – to use a bit of Alexander Technique jargon.* (A trapeze artist who doesn’t have good use won’t be a trapeze artist for long.) Sadly, she was a few decades too early for motion pictures, although although a very short low resolution Kinetoscope showing off her shooting was produced at Thomas Edison’s studio in 1894.
It turns out Annie Oakley had some interesting insights. Many were about empowering women – in some ways she was an early feminist. Others were perceptive observations about social norms, and in particular relationships between men and women. And some even have an Alexandrian resonance.
Here are a few of them:
For me, sitting still is harder than any kind of work.
If love means that one person absorbs the other, then no real relationship exists any more. Love evaporates; there is nothing left to love. The integrity of self is gone.
I would like to say to every woman: ‘There is a fight for every right’.
There are always women who will take men on their own terms. If I were a man I wouldn’t bother to change while there are women like that around.
God intended women to be outside as well as men, and they do not know what they are missing when they stay cooped up in the house.
Annie Get Your Gun was the title of a Broadway musical about her life. There were also 2 movies about her, a PBS documentary, and several books and songs.
Here’s my favorite Annie Oakley quote:
And here’s song about Annie Oakley:
* Alexander Technique teacher Hillary King has a nice definition of Alexander Technique “use”