If youre already wondering where the summer is going, youre not alone. Perhaps its time for a little recharge. The Nantucket Yoga Festival this summer seems like the perfect time and place for Bostonians to get away, find some stillness, enjoy the sunshine, and focus on wellness.

This weekend, from Friday, July 11 to Sunday, July 13, join more than 300 participants and instructors for a retreat thats welcoming to all experience levels, from beginner to veteran yogi. The festival offers classes on a range of topics, from vinyasa to Joyful Backbends to morning meditation classes on the beach.

In anticipation of the event, Boston.com caught up with local Boston yoga instructor Rebecca Pacheco (also known as OmGal), who is one of the Equinox instructors teaching at this years festival.

Whats so special about a yoga festival?

According to Pacheco, people seek out yoga retreats or festivals to elevate their practice in some light. For beginners, a festival or retreat is a great way to get a submersive experience in a supportive environment, she says. If youre a regular practitioner, it really takes your practice to the next level. Youll learn new things you want to try, or try different styles that a typical class wont let you explore as much.

From New York Times-bestselling author and instructor Gabrielle Bernstein to local instructors like Sara DiVello, Larisa Forman, and David Vendetti, even super experienced yogis are likely to find a class or instructor that challenges and interests them.

The location is really fun. Its exciting to do a practice thats so healthy for your mind and body both physically and mentally in a place thats so beautiful. The Nantucket Yoga Festival is a great example, said Pacheco. It couldnt be more picturesque and it isnt so far away to get to Nantucket.

A yoga festival requires less commitment than a retreat, which often involves one instructor for a longer period of time, like a week. At a festival, you get a little bit of everything, also, so youre not just committed to one style or one teacher, and you can choose which can be really fun for students of all levels, said Pacheco.

Do I need to train before I go?

Come as you are, said Pacheco. If you predict youre going to take advanced classes, its a good idea to maintain regular practice and ultimately keep your body safe. Yoga is a physical activity, and a form of exercise, so its important to warm up appropriately, listen to your body, and make sure you arent doing too much too soon.

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What to Expect at the Nantucket Yoga Festival

No Mat Needed! Relaxing Yoga Poses You Can Do in Bed

Yoga is a natural way to settle your mind and body. It reduces stress and muscular tension, both of which inspire a more restful night's sleep, so leave your mat rolled up in your yoga bag and hop in bed instead! Follow this sequence from start to finish, or pick and choose the poses your body needs.

Be sure to move pillows and bulky comforters out of the way so you have a flat, safe, and comfy surface to stretch on. Then in the morning when you open your eyes all refreshed and full of energy, repeat this sequence before hopping out of bed to warm up your muscles and gently wake up your mind.

Source: Shutterstock

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This is the perfect pose that doesn't require a lot of effort, but will offer a wonderful stretch for your tight hips and lower back.

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This pose feels amazing if you have a tight lower back.

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No Mat Needed! Relaxing Yoga Poses You Can Do in Bed

Forward lunge: Develops core stability and balance.

Yoga poses for runners

Yoga poses for runners

Yoga poses for runners

Yoga poses for runners

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Editor's note: Dana Santas is the creator of Radius Yoga Conditioning, a yoga style designed to help athletes move, breathe and focus better. She's the yoga trainer for the Philadelphia Phillies, Pittsburgh Pirates, Tampa Bay Lightning, Orlando Magic and dozens of pros in the MLB, NHL, NBA and NFL.

(CNN) -- If you're a runner, you've probably been told you "should do yoga."

While generic yoga classes can help with recovery, one of the best ways runners can use yoga is by applying it specifically to correct and prevent chronic issues, such as achilles tendonitis, plantar fasciitis, IT band syndrome, knee discomfort, quad strains and hip pain.

Ask a runner about their past or present physical complaints and you can expect to hear about one or more of these conditions. So what's behind these ongoing problems?

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Good yoga poses for runners

Oakland, California (PRWEB) July 10, 2014

Continuing a decades-long tradition of innovation, DriversEd.com has pioneered yet another new way for students to take a rich, full-featured online driver education course: via a downloadable app. Available in Apple's App Store, the app presents the exact same award-winning content and features that California students have long enjoyed on the DriversEd.com site. "This new app," says DriversEd.com founder and Chief Technology Officer, Gary Golduber, "will allow California students to take a fully approved driver education course with unprecedented convenience, multimedia, and control over the whole experience.

The app delivers a DMV-approved California driver education course, and gives students the official Certificate of Completion they need. DriversEd.com's unique interactive 3-D case studies let students try different maneuvers in a wide variety of driving situations, and show the consequences of good and bad decisions alike. Award-winning video presentations work alongside high-quality graphics and text crafted by driver education industry professionals with decades of experience. Clever activities further engage students throughout the course, helping to ensure that they master the material before the final exam. The app also comes with hundreds of free practice test questions, to prepare students to ace their DMV permit test so they're truly road ready.

"When we built this app," Gary Golduber, points out, "the challenge wasn't to create a high-quality driver education course-we've been doing that for years! What we wanted to do was allow the student to switch from app to online course and back at any time, from anywhere." Students can take the course online on desktop, mobile, or tablet, or via the app: it's completely up to them. "Our students can log in from their app, right from their phone, complete some of the course, log out, then log back in from their laptop, and pick up exactly where they left off. The traditional app model, which links one user to one device, is obviously very limited, and it was important to us to solve that problem."

"Best of all," adds Mr. Golduber, "they can download the app and start the course absolutely free." Students can take up to 20% of the course before paying, and, naturally, they can complete payment right through the app. He concludes, "People want to be mobile: that's why they take driver education in the first place. And there's nothing more mobile than our app!"

DriversEd.com is the largest and most visited online drivers education site in the nation. The company has provided high-quality, state-approved courses to students since 1997, and has more state-approved courses than any other online provider. DriversEd.com has helped more than 6 million students become safer, more confident drivers.

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DriversEd.com Releases California Driver Education App: Now Students Can Take State-Approved Driver's Ed on Their ...

If hybrid laptops in 2014 have a theme so far, it's the rise of the Yoga-like, a term we use to describe a system with a hinge similar to the one found on the popular line of Yoga laptops from Lenovo, as well as me-too models from Dell and others. One of the newest and least expensive of these is the 11-inch HP Pavilion x360.

This version starts at $399, which means it runs Intel Pentium chips, rather than the more mainstream Core i-series CPUs (although that's mostly fine for an 11-inch laptop). (Pricing outside the US is not available as of this writing.) HP says the x360 is aimed at millennials looking for a single device for work and play, and one goal for this system was to produce an affordable convertible that's accessible to anyone. Since we first heard about the x360, we've seen budget versions of similar 11-inch hybrid designs from Dell and Lenovo, which means the fold-back hinge may soon be as commonplace among budget laptop shoppers as netbooks were several years ago.

Sarah Tew/CNET There are, of course, trade-offs with taking designs that started in $1,000-plus laptops and bringing them down below $500. The look, while muted and modern, is bigger, thicker, and heavier than you may be used to from an 11-inch ultraportable. The screen in particular has a budget feel, with poor off-axis viewing -- especially troublesome for a tablet meant to be viewed from many angles.

But it's also less expensive than the otherwise similar 11-inch Yoga 2 from Lenovo. Our configuration of the normally $399 x360 doubled the RAM from 4GB to 8GB, resulting in a final price of $474. The Yoga 2, while slimmer and with a better screen, is $479 in a Best Buy configuration with only 4GB of RAM (other configurations are available on the sometimes-confusing Lenovo website).

That's the trade-off between these two models. For roughly the same price, you can get more RAM in the HP x360, or a smaller, lighter design and better screen in the Yoga 2. I'm inclined to lean toward the Yoga, thinking the easier-to-see display outweighs the small performance boost the extra RAM in the HP x360 gives you. That said, the entry-level x360 is only $399, and that's a price Lenovo can't currently touch.

The idea of the 360-degree fold-back hinge is that you can use the system as a traditional laptop, then bend the lid backward, stopping at a kiosk or table-tent form in the middle or folding it all the way back into a tablet orientation.

It's an appealing concept, and one we've supported since the original Lenovo Yoga model launched alongside Windows 8, paving the way for a burst of creativity in inventive hybrid designs that melded laptop and tablet. In the end, this design seems to have won out, thanks to two reasons: it does the least to interfere with the traditional clamshell laptop design, and it's relatively inexpensive to engineer, compared to pull-apart or slider-style hybrid hinges.

Sarah Tew/CNET The x360 is bigger and heavier than other 11-inch systems, hybrid or otherwise. The rounded corners and playful design gives it an accessible, consumer-gadget feel, but holding it in one hand in tablet mode is awkward. The x360 weighs 3.3 pounds, while the 11-inch Yoga 2 is only 2.8 pounds. By way of comparison, the 11-inch MacBook Air is 2.4 pounds.

But as a budget ultraportable laptop, the x360 works well, with a full-size keyboard and a large, wide, touchpad. Like many HP laptops, the top row of function keys are reversed, which means you can adjust the screen brightness, volume, and other features without holding down the Fn key. The island-style keys have a tiny bit of texture to them, which helps grip the fingers, but the keys are also shallow and wiggle a good bit, even under light typing. Still, it's better than decent for a budget laptop keyboard.

The wide touchpad, another HP staple, also translates well in the budget version presented here. It's a clickpad-style pad, giving you a larger touch surface without separate left and right mouse buttons, but the plastic surface doesn't feel as natural as more-expensive glass versions. Multitouch gestures, such as two-finger scrolling, work surprisingly well, although on a system such as this, you're likely to do a lot of your on-screen nav from the touchscreen.

More here:
HP Pavilion x360 offers Yoga-like flexibility for less

A parish priest in Co Donegal has described yoga and other disciplines such as tai chi and Reiki as contemptible. Photograph: Getty Images.

A parish priest in Co Donegal has described yoga and other disciplines such as tai chi and Reiki as contemptible.

Fr Padraig OBaoill made his comments in the latest issue of the Gaoth Dobhair parish newsletter.

As followers of Jesus Christ we should not partake in deeds that go against our religion, he wrote.

Accordingly, you should do not take part in yoga, thai chai or Reiki...Do not put your soul in jeopardy for the sake of these contemptible things.

A local yoga teacher said Fr OBaoills stance and advice to his parishioners was ignorant.

Sean OTuathalain, who runs the Yoga Centre in Letterkenny, said he would love to meet Fr OBaoill to try to understand why he was urging people not to take part in yoga.

I have to say that this advice appears to me to be coming from a position of ignorance, he said.

However, I think priests in general are skeptical of yoga and Reiki. I can understand where they are coming from but I think they need to find out more about these subjects.

Mr OTuathalain suggested that many people in Ireland turned to yoga after the scandal of clerical sexual abuse emerged.

More here:
Yoga putting souls in jeopardy, Donegal priest warns

A parish priest in Co Donegal has described yoga and other disciplines such as tai chi and Reiki as contemptible. Photograph: Getty Images.

A parish priest in Co Donegal has described yoga and other disciplines such as tai chi and Reiki as contemptible.

Fr Padraig OBaoill made his comments in the latest issue of the Gaoth Dobhair parish newsletter.

As followers of Jesus Christ we should not partake in deeds that go against our religion, he wrote.

Accordingly, you should do not take part in yoga, thai chai or Reiki...Do not put your soul in jeopardy for the sake of these contemptible things.

A local yoga teacher said Fr OBaoills stance and advice to his parishioners was ignorant.

Sean OTuathalain, who runs the Yoga Centre in Letterkenny, said he would love to meet Fr OBaoill to try to understand why he was urging people not to take part in yoga.

I have to say that this advice appears to me to be coming from a position of ignorance, he said.

However, I think priests in general are skeptical of yoga and Reiki. I can understand where they are coming from but I think they need to find out more about these subjects.

Mr OTuathalain suggested that many people in Ireland turned to yoga after the scandal of clerical sexual abuse emerged.

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Yoga putting souls in jeopardy, priest warns