Every Breath You Take: Movement-Based Neurovascular Release for the Anterior Neck Live Online with Kier Schumaker

Thank you for your interest. Registration for this class is now closed. Please email info@anatomytrains.com with any questions. 

In this Movement-Based Neurovascular Release webinar, Kieran Schumaker will provide us with an experiential understanding of the vessels, nerves, and organs related to breathing, vocal production, and swallowing.

This three-hour class will be of particular interest to anyone who has recently attended online the Anatomy Trains dissection series titled “Every Breath You Take,” in which Tom Myers and Todd Garcia helped us look at breathing-related structures in the pharyngeal, thoracic, and abdominal regions. By request, Kier has planned a tour through this same territory, with a focus on the anterior neck and thoracic outlet and the functions of speech and swallowing.

For Anatomy Trains followers, this will enhance your understanding of the “visceral cylinder” within the neck, including all the tubes, vessels, and nerves that connect head to heart, lungs, and gut.

Anatomy geeks will be fascinated by Kier’s exploration of the extrinsic and intrinsic laryngeal muscles that we all use for phonation, singing, and swallowing. (Phonation is making sound by opening and closing the glottis.)

Somatic professionals (including vocal coaches, occupational therapists, and structural integrators) will gain a fresh set of concepts and methods to use with clients who have a past injury or current need for functional improvement related to breathing and/or use of voice.

Each of us will come away with fresh interoceptive awareness of our own pharynx and larynx, along with a novel method for releasing our own laryngeal tension.

We will also benefit from self-applied release for artery tension to scalenes, and we’ll learn a simple approach to changing the balance of tension amongst the jaw muscles. (If you haven’t yet learned Kier’s scalene and jaw techniques in earlier NVR webinars, this part of the class will literally be a “jaw dropping” and neck-liberating experience!) People who have already studied in depth how to release artery tension to jaw muscles and scalenes will anchor their previous learning in the context of our new anterior neck explorations.

Kier highly recommends that you log into this webinar in a location where you feel comfortable making some quiet or medium-loud noise (not in a cafe, and far enough away from a family member or roommate who might be sleeping or studying). The best way to learn about laryngeal muscles is to use them to produce sound while you are learning the anatomy! Untrained vocal novices as well as trained singers will likely learn something new during Kier’s guided tour.

In the last third of our three-hour journey, Kier will provide practical guidance on how to share some of these Movement-Based NVR techniques with clients. Therefore, you will want to invite a friend or family member to join you during the third hour of class (for about forty minutes), so that you can practice sharing some of your new techniques with them. Our last twenty minutes of class will be reserved for your questions.

Throughout the webinar, Kier will share with you stories and examples from their practice and personal experience, offering a neurovascular explanation for neck-related patterns and problems such as:

• “military neck” (over-straightened upper cervical vertebrae)
• having a voice that tires easily or doesn’t carry across the room
• “vocal fry” (gravelly low voice).
• the emotional experience we refer to as “swallowing your voice”
• uncommon traumatic injuries to the anterior neck
• having a strong gag reflex
• recurrent hiccups
• the unnecessary use of “glottal stops” when reading aloud

Note: If you cannot attend this course live, it will be recorded and all registrants will have access for 45 days. 

Webinar schedule:

Saturday, March 19th:

12:00 – 3:00 PM Eastern Standard Time (US)

Note: the ensure a high quality student experience, registration for this course will CLOSE on Friday, March 18th, at 8 PM EST. 

Heads up for manual therapists: Several weeks after this webinar, Kier will be leading a four-hour masterclass on easing the breath, with considerable attention for the pulmonary arteries, vagus nerve into lungs, and artery supply to diaphragm. Manual therapists are encouraged to attend both this Movement-Based NVR webinar and the Manual NVR masterclass! Register for the 4 hour masterclass here.

Get in touch if you have questions about this course.