u/Double-Attitude7810

I was talking with some friends last Thursday night over dinner in my old neighborhood, where I used to live solo. It sits right close to one of the most beautiful areas in the city. The conversation brought back a vivid memory of a flat I desperately wanted almost nine years ago.

It was a basement flat in a chalet, nestled right in that beautiful, nearby neighborhood. The owner was an older woman who lived alone; her children had long since moved away, so she rented out part of her home. At the time, the rent was just too expensive for me, and her rule against having visitors felt a bit too restrictive.

But looking back, it isn’t the flat itself that I remember most.

At one point during the viewing, she mentioned that maybe we could share meals sometimes. For some reason, that is the detail that has stayed with me all these years. I loved my own grandmother and my grand-aunt dearly, and hearing those words immediately made me picture a life that went far beyond a standard tenant-landlady relationship.

When I told this story, my friend asked if that offer had turned me off. Definitely not. Knowing myself, if I had moved in, I probably wouldn’t have left until she passed away. I am simply the kind of person who gets deeply attached.

He said that would have been a great experience, and I couldn’t agree more.

Financially, not moving in was the right decision. Yet, every now and then, my mind drifts back to that flat and that woman. Not because I regret missing out on the property, but because I wonder about the life that might have unfolded there.

The shared dinners. The quiet, daily conversations. An unexpected friendship.

Wherever she is now, I hope she is doing well. Every now and then when I pass by that neighborhood, I still say a little prayer for the local grandma I never had.

So, I’ve been doing Pilates on and off for 5 years (and yoga for 10), but I switched to a new studio this year. For the first time in my life, an instructor actually explained the TVA to me.

Wild, right? But to be fair, my previous studio was quite “relaxed”, so I’ve been basically flying blind for half a decade. Shoutout to my current instructor and bless him for cluing me in!! It explains so much, like why I’ve always had super tensed shoulders and occasional bout of tendinitis. I was clearly working hard, just in all the wrong places.

Now, my classes are just a constant loop of me trying to “zip up” my core while he reminds me to stop wearing my shoulders as earrings. It’s a lot of mental gymnastics!

Does this ever actually become instinctive? Or am I destined to be reminded to relax my shoulders for the rest of my life?

Just sharing the struggle! Cheers to the instructors who find the foundations we missed! 🥂

EDIT: Wow, thanks for all the input! I didn’t realize how many of us were in the same boat. To answer the most common questions. TVA is the Transverse Abdominis (the deep "corset" muscle). My instructor didn’t actually use the technical name, only found that out after doing some of my own research and deep-diving into YouTube videos.

For everyone asking about how it was explained that it finally made sense, he told me to imagine zipping up jeans two sizes too small, but the hard part is you still have to breathe! He also has me focus on "closing" my scapulae (shoulder blades) so they don't hike up toward my ears. It’s been a total game-changer for my shoulder tension and tendinitis.

It’s interesting to see in the comments how many people only hear about this from a Physio. A friend also told me she only learned it because her first instructor was a physical therapist. My previous studio was lovely, but it had a very heavy flow and was relaxed, and since we frequently alternated classes and instructors, I think some of those technical details just got lost in the shuffle.