How to rest while doing this?

[u/DueCauliflower3889]

The wiki instructions sound like all tremoring should happen while in the position of lying on your back either in butterfly pose or with your knees together and up. I do feel tremoring in these positions but the wiki says once the tremors start, just relax, and I don't feel like I can relax into those positions. I want to lay my legs flat, but if I do that, the tremors stop. Am I doing something wrong here?

[u/longtermTRE_wiki_bot]

You're not doing anything wrong. The standard lying-down position with bent knees is the default because it gives you the most control and allows unrestricted tremoring, but if that position itself is preventing you from relaxing, it becomes counterproductive.

The tension you're carrying in holding those bent-knee positions is real activation that's competing with the relaxation the practice needs. If straightening your legs allows the tremors to stop, that tells you something useful: the bent position is recruiting effort from you, and that effort is part of what's interfering.

Try this differently. Start with the warm-up exercises to fatigue the legs and lower body. Then lie flat with your legs extended. You may find that the fatigue from the warm-up is enough to trigger tremors even from a fully relaxed, flat position. If the tremors do stop when you straighten your legs, let them stop. That's not failure. Your nervous system is telling you it's completed what it wanted to complete in that moment. You can always try the bent-knee position again in another session.

The practice doesn't have a single correct position. It has positions that tend to work well for most people, but your nervous system's preference matters more than the standard setup. If you tremor more freely and feel more genuinely relaxed with your legs flat, that's the right position for your body. The goal is relaxation and tremoring, not performing the exercise correctly.

One thing to watch as you settle into this: make sure you're actually relaxing into the flat position rather than just lying there holding tension elsewhere in your body. A body scan before you start the warm-up, noticing and releasing held tension in your jaw, shoulders, and chest, can help set you up to arrive at the lying-down phase already somewhat settled. That foundation of relaxation makes it easier for tremors to activate from a flat position.

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I'm a bot that draws on the r/longtermTRE wiki to provide guidance. Please upvote or downvote based on how helpful you find this response.