My latest airplane read was Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thalerr & Prof. Cass R. Sunstein. They point out that our choices are greatly influenced by their context or what they call choice architecture. (I promise this will come around to yoga.) When we choose a flavor of ice cream on a hot summer night we are pretty good at selecting a flavor we like without assistance. When we can sample an unusual one, our taste buds give us instant feedback to make our choice even easier. Choosing a new car, a health plan, or a retirement strategy is more difficult. We may not be as well informed and the feedback is slower. How about deciding to diet or practice yoga? There are so many choices to be made and inertia is incredibly strong. It is very difficult to change our habits when the results accrue slowly. Can choices be designed so we are more likely to behave in ways that benefit us?

Nudge introduced me to the concept of default settings as an aid in decision making. When I lose electricity at home, my digital clocks (on the microwave, the stove, my alarm clock) all blink 12:00 when the power resumes. The manufacturers set 12:00 as the default setting, but they could have picked anything. Some cars have a default setting that causes the car to beep if you turn off the key and leave the lights on, or they buzz if you don’t latch your seatbelt. These are examples of conscious choice architecture. I am grateful that my computer is full of default settings, yet I have the freedom to change them as I become more technologically savvy.

I’ve noticed that many popular yoga styles emphasize a particular routine. The flow acts as a default setting. Once a student rolls out his or her mat, he or she doesn’t have to make more choices. The student just plows through the routine as time permits. In my role as a teacher I want to broaden my students experience of yoga. I don’t believe in a magic sequence that is ideal for all bodies at all times. None the less, in my own practice I find I recycle familiar sequences and then flow into variations and explorations. Many yogis use the Sun Salutation as both a physical and mental preparation for their practice. As I center, it is easier to overcome my early morning lethargy if I only have to make one decision, “Table Warm-up” for example, and can then continue through an entire familiar flow without having to make another choice. Once I am moving, my body leads me into further warm-ups, postures, pranayama and meditation as time permits. Even though I just got out of bed, I end with a few slow breaths lying in Sivasana to integrate the benefits of my practice. In hotels in Italy, I could always fit in a standing series and a quick Sivasana before breakfast. Lubricating my joints before biking in Puglia, walking the streets of Milan, or flying home felt essential.
For the month of June I have chosen to work on teaching the same warm-ups each week to my different classes. The women on the minimum security side are learning the 8 Brocades, while my longer term students are creating flows from the Sun Salutation. Meanwhile, the veterans are learning a fixed seated posture routine, some seated on mats on the floor and others in wheelchairs or arm chairs. My goal is for my students to learn a default routine to nudge them to practice without my guidance, eventually grooving the behavior until yoga becomes an integral part of their lifestyles.

The readings I have selected for this theme both relate to practice. When your practice slips, begin again without judgment. You are always welcome. And know that the benefits of yoga are not a matter of faith, they are a matter of practice!

Practice PDF

Let me know what routines work for you. If you are having trouble getting started, let me  suggest something just for you. Please comment by clicking the header of this post and I’ll e-mail you a response.