July Yoga Challenge – Week Two

Good morning friends! Happy Monday from the beach!

No, I absolutely do not use props to make my pups seem like they are looking at the camera 😉 Oops! Busted. 

A green smoothie, a cup of green tea and a run with the pups to start this day of right!

How’s it going? How was your weekend? All good over here – especially after our arrival to Cape San Blas Saturday afternoon. We stocked up on lots of good eats and have already had a few delicious meals, including these tasty Spring Rolls last night.

Anyways, on to today’s business – Week Two of the July Yoga Challenge! Last weeks participation in the Forearm Headstand was awesome – I am so happy so many of you joined in. I finished out strong yesterday, practicing a little on the beach.

So did my sister-in-law (SIL from now on) and right hand man on this challenge!

As always, life is still good upside down.

So on to week two! If you didn’t join in last week, no worries! Today is the perfect day to join in! Here are the July Yoga Challenge details.

July Yoga Challenge

1. Every Monday during the month of July I will be giving you a new pose to work on for one week straight.
2. Work on the pose everyday for seven days, spending however much time you want – five minutes or 30 minutes it doesn’t matter, just as long as your working on it.
3. Have someone take a picture of you on Monday attempting the pose.
4. Have someone take a picture of you at the end of the week on Sunday showing your progress.
5. Do a side-by-side comparison picture and upload it to the Guard Your Heart Facebook Page or tag me (@aharpe) on Instagram or tweet it (@aharpe) if you want to share your progress (and if you will hashtag all your photos to #julyyogachallenge)! Or simply let us know in the comments section below that you are  participating and working on it!

The pose for this week is crane. Crane is an arm balancing pose, working both the arms and the core. From me and my SIL, here’s a little crane action shoreside.

And just to note, something like this…

…is very likely to happen so be sure to practice in a well cushioned area. Lucky for me, it was just a crash into a wave.

And there you have it my friends, a day in the life of a yogi. Practice. Fall. Get up. Practice. Fall Again. Succeed!

From Yoga Journal, this is what crane is supposed to look like. So you can see, I still have some work to do too!

In order to help you succeed too, here is step-by-step on how you can successfully get into crane.

This is definitely a challenging pose and will probably take longer than a week to perfect, but over time it gets easier and easier so stick with it and don’t give up! Practice makes perfect my friends.

Also, don’t forget to keep me posted on your progress, on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter!

I hope you have an awesome Monday!

Good health!

Tagged as: arm balancing poses, beach, core strength, crane, july yoga challenge, vegetarian spring rolls, yoga, yoga challenge, yoga pose, yogi