Registration is a necessary first step to joining the VM Study Group. You need to provide your details including your Barral Institute Student ID which will be verified with the Barral Institute. If it is confirmed that you have completed the required Barral Institute course prerequisites you will be provided access to the Online VM Study Group at the Curious level of membership. If you have taken Barral classes but have not completed the levels that are currently on the online study group you will be given access to the blogs only.

DISCLAIMER: Though the Barral Institute fully endorses the VM Study Group and Barral course completion is a prerequisite, the VM Study Group is a service that is independent from the Barral Institute and owned and operated by its founder Dr. Ron Mariotti.

The VM Study Group service is only being made available to people who have completed the corresponding Barral Institute course(s). So if you do not meet the prerequisites your registration will not be accepted...sorry...if that is your situation then by all means please come back once you have completed the appropriate Barral Institute course(s).

The Curious and Serious levels have no limit to members.  The Committed level of subscription is limited spaces available and is on a first-come-first-served basis. See the Pricing page for details.

You can request a refund within 30 days of subscribing but there will be a USD$50 cancellation fee incurred.

Please make full use of the free forever Curious membership to decide before upgrading to a paid subscription level.

You will be auto-renewed at the end of the 12 months of your subscription from the day you subscribe.  You will also receive a auto-renewal notice one month, one week and one day from the time of auto-renewal.  If you would like to cancel your subscription please email me and let me know and I will make sure you are not renewed. (see the Pricing page for further details).

The Online VM Study Group charging is handled through the Stripe payment service. Payment options include: Visa, MasterCard, American Express, JCB, Discover, and Diners Club. If you require a non-card payment option please contact me...I can't promise I can accommodate you but I will do my best.

The Online VM Study Group charging is handled through the Stripe payment service. No credit card details are handled through my website and no credit card details are passed through my website (see Stripe payment service security for details) .

No, I'm sorry but this study group is strictly based on your previous completion of the requisite Barral classes.  This is to ensure that we are all on the same page, which will only enhance your learning process.

The Online VM Study Group has been structured as a subscription service rather than as a product purchase to better reflect the community nature of the study group model. We learn much when we can learn from each other. Additionally, quiz and study material updates are most cost-effectively distributed in an online form so prices can be kept as low as possible (a downloadable interactive Quiz...not trivial to produce, maintain and distribute...and we have 6 or 7 quizzes per study group and will ultimately have four study groups (VM1, VM2, VM3, VM4!).

There is one free forever and two subscription levels corresponding to the distinct study group participant objectives.

Yes you can. If there is space available in your target subscription level then you may upgrade or downgrade your service subscription level at any time. If you are looking to upgrade your service the most cost-effective times would be on your 12 month service renewal date.

Yes you can.

If you are a subscriber to the Committed level you are encouraged to submit your case reports to Dr. Mariotti for his comments and critiques.  After you case report has been edited and the final version returned to you Dr. Mariotti will be posting your case report on the vmstudygroup.com site in a protected format.  In other words, it will not be "downloadable".  It will be posted to the home page of the site and viewable by the public.  The goal is to provide you with a protected location to showcase your hard work as well as inspire others who may be interested in participating in this study group model. If you do not want your cases to appear on this site then please do no submit your cases for review.

Your Curious registration allows you access to the first module for as long as you desire.  It does not expire! With a paid subscription you will have access to ALL course modules for all courses you for which you qualify and this becomes immediately available for you to study at your own pace.

The details of the premium increase from the Serious to the Committed subscription level can be viewed in the pricing page (see the Pricing page for further details)

About every month from 2019-2021 exciting new information will be added to the Online VM study group. This includes all updates to existing material (which will be done incrementally on an ongoing basis). All subscribers will have access to this new information. How good a deal is that...pretty good I think!

1. When you are on the home page look to the menu list on the left and you should see a button labeled "VM Study Group with a "+" sign.  Click on this and you will see the study groups you are qualified to view.  Click on one of these.

2. Then you will see the introduction page that says; "Hello Everyone".  Read this and at the bottom of the page click on the purple button "Go to first course unit".

3. Now you are at the page for “Module 1/ Unit 1”.  Please read the whole page as there will be information you will need.

4. After you have read this page click on the button that indicates you have completed this unit.

5. Then you can click on the button below this that says, "next unit".  You will proceed through each unit in this way.  At the end of the Module, if you would like to take the quiz you will need to achieve an 80% in order to pass this module.

There is a known quirk in the service that the audio player occasionally does not appear on the Layered Palpation course unit page. To correct this please refresh your browser page. If the audio player still does not appear please contact us.

Follow these instructions and see if this fixes it. Basically these instructions add [*.]vmstudygroup.com as allowed to access flash.

If you still have an issue please email me and I will help you sort it out.  If I am unable my IT person, Tim, is a wizard!

You can access your online course from the "VM4 STUDY GROUP" menu item on the home page menu bar (or VM3 Study Group, etc) below the "VM STUDY GROUPS" menu item. If this VM Study Group sub-menu item is not visible please check your account or look on the pricing page. If these status pages do not show you are a Curious, Serious or Committed subscriber then you will not have access to your online course until your registration or subscription is approved.

If you have not yet registered for the VM Study Group you will not have an account. You can register on the home page by clicking the "REGISTER" button. Once you have registered you will see a "MY ACCOUNT" menu item on the home page menu bar.

Quizzes are kept secure and the answers private to ensure that people who pass the test (80%+) have truly read the material. I understand that my subscribers who like to strive for 100% might feel some frustration in not knowing which questions were answered incorrectly and the corresponding correct answer.

The reason for this is that I only have four choices in how the online study group can operate to ensure that people who pass the quizzes have confidence that others did not achieve the same level of competence without doing the hard work.  My options are as follows:

1)  Allow people to take the test once only keeping the answers private and keeping private the knowledge of which questions were answered incorrectly (consistent with University quality exams).

2)  Allow people to take the test as many times as they want keeping the answers private and keeping private the knowledge of which questions were answered incorrectly (consistent with a more flexible University quality exam).

3)  Allow people to take the test as many times as they want keeping the answers private but identifying which questions were answered incorrectly AND limiting the attempts to once per month.

4)  Restrict people to two attempts to pass only with incorrect / correct answers provided (questions are tough and randomised from a pool so 3+ attempts to pass the quiz would not be unusual).

In reviewing these options I chose option #2 since it promotes the use of quizzes as a tool that subscribers can re-use multiple times now and in the future to test their knowledge of the material with a high degree of accuracy. I chose not to go with option #3 because I expect people who did not pass would feel frustrated that they would need to wait to re-try the test. I chose not to go with options #1 and #4 because these options limit the value of the quizzes as an ongoing learning tool.

I hope that helps a little…though I understand if that does not ease your frustration in not knowing where you may have erred in a quiz you have completed. Rest assured though that, when you do pass the test, you will enjoy the feeling of accomplishment that goes along with the completion of a difficult task and with the knowledge that your command of the material was well earned.