Do you hate when your muscles shake in yoga? Read this.

I have heard a lot of people’s opinions about muscle vibration during physical movement during my decades in various gyms, Pilates studios and yoga classes. “This is how you know it’s working,” I once heard a Pilates teacher advise me as I held a variation of Bird Dog, balancing my body weight on three limbs, my core flopping like a fish out of water against the reformer rollers. (I’m still not sure What Was I supposed to work out – my muscles or my diabolical exercise routine?)

Vibration in response to tremendous effort has also been normalized in many of the yoga classes I’ve taken, albeit without the bold “pain is gain” subtext. Several yoga teachers nodded in agreement as I struggled to stay upright Boat position. So much so that I reminded myself of the ship I was inside The perfect storm– She fights to hold on but is destined to drown.

So yes, I’ve gotten the message many times that shivering during a physical challenge is (mostly) safe. I wasn’t in pain and my muscles didn’t continue to shake once I let go of the position. My problem was much more…superficial. I’ll admit it. I wasn’t okay with the general trembling of my body. Especially when I was training in it Yoga studios with mirrorsI felt my cheeks flush as my heart trembled as I kept my knees off the carpet Wave Or my whole body is balanced Triangle position.

I tried to calm my embarrassment by reminding myself what many teachers had repeatedly emphasized to me: that shaking meant I was getting stronger. Furthermore, my practice is not supposed to be perfect.

However, I couldn’t help but compare myself to others in the class whose bodies seemed solid and immobile like rocks compared to my quivering like a leaf in the wind or flapping like a butterfly’s wings, or, well, you get the point.

On top of all this self-awareness, I couldn’t reconcile another common piece of yoga teachers’ advice—to find comfort in the pose—with the experience of physically fighting the pose. Facilitates? I’ve never met her.

But recently my point of view has changed. Positioned safely in the back of a three-student yoga class (no mirrors in the room!), I was quietly enjoying the privacy I had in the back row to myself. The teacher pointed us to my aforementioned enemy, Bird Dog. She reluctantly took it all on all fours and reached with one arm and the other leg outside the carpet. Immediately, my muscles began to undulate, throwing me off balance to one side, then the other, in quick little spurts and jerks.

I almost gave it up and fell back on it child pose, But I decided to hold on for a few more seconds. In a sense, I am an act Surrender – but not to the situation. I’ve given up fighting the vibration. Making sure that no one else’s eyes were on me, I allowed myself to succumb to the very thing I’d been avoiding—the fact that I couldn’t stay still in my position. I assumed that my body would start throbbing worse than before and that I would fall or flop onto the carpet with a dramatic thump. But none of these things happened.

I didn’t realize it until that moment, but by resisting my shaking, I was making it worse. My body felt restricted within the two inch range I gave it. When did you accept my orgasm? When I told my body that it was Allowed Shake? That was a different story. Instead of my limbs flailing frantically and my muscles twitching as if they were spasming, my movement became easier. No, I haven’t been in the technically “correct” position for a very long time. But I felt stronger and more solid than when I was trying too hard.

The best part? I didn’t have any thoughts like “I’m not strong enough for this pose.” I appreciated the fact that my body was creating its own version of the pose, that I could trust my limbs to perform their improvised dance, and that my core was strong enough to support this fluidity.

Now, I think about muscle vibration completely differently. Instead of framing it as a sign that I’m getting stronger or weaker, or even allowing it to motivate my pursuit of perfection, it brings up a different set of ideas. What happens when my reality doesn’t live up to expectations? Can I meet myself where I am and not fight it so much? Could there be something deeper, truer, more authentic for me underneath all the fear? Sure, this could be a lot of muscle shaking. But again, that’s why I’m on the mat.