Vreni Gurd

About

I formerly worked as a corrective exercise specialist for 25 years. It became evident to me that it is not possible to strengthen a weak muscle adequately if the opposing muscle restricts range-of-motion too much. One cannot strengthen the range one does not have.

Once exposed to osteopathy, I realized that limits in range-of-motion are frequently due to organs, nerves, veins and arteries being adhered to adjacent tissue. My CHEK training had already informed me that muscles were slaves to almost every other system in the body, because being able to breathe, detoxify the body, deliver nutrition and remove waste are more important to survival than being able to move. The first job of the muscular system is to protect the viability of the circulatory, organ and nervous system.  A psoas will tighten up to hold up a kidney for example.

Wanting to be capable of assisting my patients further, I enrolled in the Canadian School of Osteopathy, a five year program with a thesis. 

My thesis was on the topic of Tensegrity, and as such, instead of viewing the body as being stabilized through gravitational compression, I see it as being stabilized through balanced tension, like a tent.  My role is to balance whole-body tension through removing adhesions between adjacent tissues. I can work very locally to address such issues as tennis elbow, or a knee problem, however frequently the root causes of these issues are further away.

Any slack regained, will alter tensions within the entire body-web, improving the function of the whole. Eventually, with consistent mobility work and treatment, enough slack in the tensegrity web will be restored to be able to live comfortably.

My Skills

The goal in the treatment sessions is to assist your body in balancing the three-dimensional fascial web such that you can stand, sit, and move with ease. The ultimate goal is for you to forget you have a body - to bring you to a place where you can participate in all the activities you want, and you are not worried that your back, knees or any other body part will regret it later.

Imagine your body were comprised of a bunch of balloons, within your skin balloon.  The lung balloons, organ balloons, muscle balloons ... Falls, cuts, surgeries etc. put squishies in your balloons, adhering them to each other, which alters the posture of the entire balloon.  

Furthermore, the blood vessels and nerves are strings that run from the head to the fingertips and toes, and they form two whole-body trees within our body balloons.  If there were a boulder sitting on the root of the tree in the foot, the shape of the entire tree would be altered, as the strings of the body-tree would be pulled inferiorly towards the foot adhesions, just like a tent would be pulled towards a tighter guy-line.

Professional Associations / Memberships

Canadian School of Osteopathy CSO DOMP

Corrective Holistic Exercise Kinesiologist CHEK 3

McLaughlin Scar Tissue Release MSTR

Holistic Lifestyle Consultant HLC

Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology CSEP