Neurovascular Release

You’ll be amazed at how transformative NVR techniques are in the context of Structural Integration--so helpful for clients who need an extra nudge to help them emerge from an old structural pattern.

Structural integrators who love to practice Series Work (a 10- or 12-session protocol that systematically guides you in addressing structural balance, mobility, and resilience throughout the whole body), newly graduated SI practitioners, and experienced SI practitioners who have not yet been introduced to osteopathic-style visceral or neural work might want to begin their NVR studies with one of the Introduction to Manual NVR courses. Either of the two intro classes can serve as a bridge between the classically broad, deep touch of SI and the precise and gentle touch of osteopathic-style work.  

Introduction to Manual NVR: Neurovascular Release for Structural Integrators 

This three-day class provides you with techniques and strategies for each session in a classic SI series, and is open only to structural integrators. (This course was formerly titled Manual NVR-SI Part 1: Neurovascularly-Informed Structural Integration. If you have taken it already, your next course is Manual NVR Part 1: Neck, Upper Thorax, and “Roots of Arms.” )

Introduction to Manual NVR: Sagittal and Coronal Plane Balance

This two-day class is an alternative introduction to the five-part certification program. It is open to non-SI practitioners who have an interest in working structurally as well as SI practitioners. All the techniques and strategies can easily be folded into an SI series, but our discussions do not center the classic SI series. Everything taught in this class is also taught in the other Intro to Manual NVR class, so you should choose one or the other. (Depending on your geographic location, it might be more convenient for you to take one or the other. )

With either of these Intro courses, you will learn NVR techniques that free up movement and improve structural balance throughout the body. You will gain new strategic approaches for classic structural problems. You will find yourself using less physical effort, and new strategies that make your work more efficient. You will refine your subtle palpation skills. You will learn through experience how our neuromotor system protects the vascular and neural networks in our body, having a big effect on posture and limiting or allowing movement.

These intro classes are designed to bridge the classic SI approach (broad, deep touch with a pattern-oriented view of fascial manipulation) and an osteopathic style of tissue manipulation (delicate, gentle, tissue-specific manipulation of organs, vessels, fascial support structures, and the neural network). Taking an Intro to NVR class before diving into detailed regional anatomy will help you integrate neurovascular work into an SI practice oriented around the Series. If you are a new SI graduate, NVR-SI Part 1 will keep your new NVR skills grounded in Series work. 

Experienced structural integrators who have already been introduced to neural and visceral work or who practice outside the series doing fix-it sessions and orthopedically-oriented sessions may want to skip taking an intro course and go directly to Manual NVR Part 1. (The techniques covered in the intro courses have been selected from Manual NVR Parts 1 through 4, so you will eventually learn them all if you do the whole course series.)

Here are short summaries of the five required courses leading up to Certification in Manual Neurovascular Release. Practitioners who studied neurovascular work with Kier prior to 2019 are invited to reconnect and discuss with Kier the best path for their continuing or renewed NVR study.

Manual NVR Part 1: Neck, Upper Thorax, and “Roots of Arms”

Manual NVR Part 2: Lower Thorax, Pelvis, and Hips

These first two courses in the series are best taken close together so that your clients will benefit from your skills in working throughout the central and peripheral nervous system (with cervical, thoracic, and lumbosacral nerves as well as dura). Simillarly, the upper body cannot be fully addressed without lower body arterial work. You my want to take a pause here in your NVR studies after NVR Part 2 (for financial reasons, life circumstances, or simply for more time to integrate NVR into your practice). Some practitioners will want to continue directly on to Parts 3 and 4. 

Manual NVR Part 3: Lower Extremities

Manual NVR Part 4: Upper Extremities

In Parts 3 and 4, we continue working in detail out into the extremities, discussing bodywide patterns and reviewing techniques and concepts from Parts 1 and 2 while focusing on gaining confidence and skill with assessment and strategy.

Manual NVR Part 5: Assessment and Strategy Practicum

This is the capstone to your NVR learning journey, a clinic-style class only offered in person We will focus on session flow and bring together all you have studied so far. You will do full sessions on each other and on outside models with support from fellow students and from Kier, and you will have the opportunity to practice four-handed work.

When you have reduced the body’s subconscious need to protect the neural and vascular networks, your client will have less pain, more efficient movement, better proprioception, more productive stretching, and greater freedom.