health & fitness

Yoga instructors Nancy Powell
and Debra Abramson

Siblings lead local yoga classes.

L

Judith Doner Berne
Special to the Jewish News

fights (dimmed). Cameras (Jewish
News photographer Jerry Zolynsky
clicks away). Action (warriors and
downward facing dogs fill the room).
Sisters Nancy Powell and Debra
Abramson are co-directing this one-of-a
kind yoga class at Body Language Fitness
and Yoga Center in Commerce Township.
"We always talked about doing a class
together," Powell says.
Powell leads off the first half of the
90-minute class with 45 minutes of active
vinyasa yoga. Abramson is the closer, talk-
ing students through a series of longer-held
poses and stretches, known as yin yoga,
which targets the connective tissue.
"There aren't too many forms of exercise
that makes us feel both calmer and also
that deep vitality',' Powell tells the students.
"When I teach, I welcome distractions;'
Abramson reminds, mindful of the photog-

rapher clicking away. "Yoga really teaches us
to stay in the moment."
Their sister act is unusual — even for
them. Both teach separately and often
several times a day at local yoga studios,
including Body Language, the Sports Club
of West Bloomfield and Center for Yoga in
Birmingham and West Bloomfield.
They take each other's classes, but were
excited when Body Language owner Andrea
von Behren gave them an opportunity to
team-teach on an occasional basis.
"Our niche is families," von Behren says.
"We promote the
whole family working
out together. To have
two sisters teaching
the class is an exten-
sion of what we pro-
mote. They feed off
each other so well:"
Of course, it doesn't
hurt, says the West
Bloomfield resident,
that "Nancy and Deb

are two of my favorite people."
Yoga has added to the strong bond
between Abramson and Powell, both life-
long exercisers who spend a lot of time
together. That often translates into tak-
ing long walks in West Bloomfield, where
they both live now after growing up in
Southfield.
"We used to mainly gossip',' Powell says.
But their conversation expanded when
"Deb got me into yoga."
Now, "We talk about yoga flows, yoga
music," Abramson says. "The gossip comes
after. The yoga
comes first."

Forever Fit
Abramson, 55,
a mother of
five, has been a
fitness teacher
since 1976,

much of that time at the Jewish Community
Center in West Bloomfield. Although she
first earned a degree in social work from
Wayne State University, she added a degree
in exercise science from the University of
Michigan as fitness became more than a
pastime.
As trends progressed from aerobics to
step to slide to Pilates, Abramson added
each to her own exercise and teaching rep-
ertoires."I became certified in Pilates even
before yoga;' she says.
Yoga came into her picture in the mid-
1990s."It was called Reebok Flexible Strength
Training at the JCC," she recalls, smiling.
"Nobody would have come to it if it were
called yoga. We called the sun salutations
Module A and B. And we called the deep, sus-
tained diaphragmatic breath, considered the
heart of yoga, the Darth Vader breath."

Sister Act on page 36

Brittany von Behren of West Bloomfield practices a

Robin Mantay of Commerce Township is

Julie Beaumarchais of White Lake performs yoga

yoga exercise.

helped in the cobra position by Abramson.

with the rest of the class.

May 26

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2011

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