psycho-physical wallpaper

When I was a child, my parents moved house often. The new house was usually old and needed some work done. We always redecorated. And that meant stripping wallpaper. If you have ever done this you will recognise immediately the smell it evokes in your memory - wet paper and wallpaper paste.

You start with a bucket of water and a sponge and gently wet the surface of the wallpaper. It takes a while soak in. Then you do it again. And wait for it to soak in. And again until you can peel back an edge with your scraper. Sometimes the paper comes off easily and you can tear large strips and pieces from the surface of the wall. And then there are some parts that seem so stuck to the wall that no amount of soaking and scraping will shift them.

At last the paper lies in a soggy heap on the floor. But look! Below the first layer of wallpaper there is another. This one has a different pattern. Below that there is yet another. And another…I remember one wall that revealed eight layers of wallpaper going right back to the 1930’s or 40’s.

Learning Alexander Technique is much like stripping psycho-physical wallpaper: First we soak the surface gently with conscious awareness. Then we let it soak in. Then repeat until the top layer of tension starts to peel away, sometimes in a big strip, more often in small pieces. We soak and scrape, soak and scrape until we get to the next layer…

I had my first Alexander lesson almost 30 years ago and of course I keep on soaking and scraping - the same process. There are infinite layers of wallpaper that become ever more subtle as you go deeper.

If you feel inspired to start the wallpaper stripping process yourself - perhaps out of pure curiosity to see what is underneath - you can contact me by replying directly to this email to arrange a first lesson. Here are a few words of inspiration from past students after their first lesson: