Aerial Curriculum for Every Type of Body

Teaching Concepts |

Guest

When designing curriculum it’s important to keep one question in mind:

What would you like students to get out of your classes?

Is your goal for your students to perform? To improve body awareness and mobility? Or, maybe, are your student’s at the cutting edge of difficulty? Depending on your answer, your curriculum MIGHT need to look different,

That’s not to say these goals are mutually exclusive, but keeping your top goal in mind will help you start the process of designing a curriculum to help all bodies towards it.

Here are the most important goals we have for our students in our in-person classes:

Fall in love with aerial
Become happier and healthier through the practice

So, we want to make sure our students have a great time and start setting a strong foundation for a smart aerial practice that starts right from Day 1.

Besides the specific moves that our students learn in their first class, we also want them to leave their first class with these takeaways:

I can have success with aerial
Aerial is a brain and body practice, so I have to be mentally present to succeed
Physics, anatomy, and other sciences are key in aerial, and understanding how they work makes aerial easier
Aerial is a journey, and I should enjoy that journey
Aerial can be great for my body if I’m smart in my practice
Safety is really important in aerial and it needs to be in my mind at all times

Even though our goals may seem simple or purely recreational, many of our students progress to an advance level and some have moved on to world class professional programs.

Here’s a little insight into how we do that.

1. Our new students all receive a safety orientation before their first class.

Safety orientation covers three important topics: rigging safety, awareness of surroundings to keep other aerialists safe, and anatomical safety for your own body. Right away, students are taught that safety is important and we take it very seriously!

2. We check in with everyone before every class.

Before every class, we ask students if they have anything going on at that moment that we should know about. We ask them “Any aches, pains, bumps, bruises we should know about?” Our students know anything from paper cuts on the fingers, bruises from last class, or headaches from work are worthy of mentioning. Our teachers will also let their students know if they have anything going on too.

3. We start every class with a ground warm-up.

Warm-ups are designed to empower students because aspects of our classes are built into the warm up and when students get to the skills in class the actions will be familiar. We also weave those familiar bits into aerial terminology and theory to get students thinking like an aerialist without even realizing it.

4. We ease new students slowly into their aerial warmup.

New students learn how to grip the apparatus, how to engage their shoulders, and how it feels to have your support above you instead of below. Each new move we teach builds off the previous, and we empower students to stop adding on at any time.

5. In a day 1 class we plan to only modify UP, not down.

Some methods present a challenging move first and then give smaller steps if someone can’t do it. We take the opposite approach with our brand new beginners. We introduce one easy step of a skill, and make that its own thing to achieve. If it goes well, we’ll add onto it.

Faux Back Balance

Level 1 |

Top Bar

Here’s an example

of how we break a skill down into little sections for new students, making each little section a goal to achieve all on its own. Then everyone has success no matter how far down the road of this skill they travel!

6. We’re ready with modifications to offer right away, based on what we observed in our students in the warmup.

For example, if someone had trouble engaging their abs in the ground warm-up, then we’ll know to set their fabric knot lower to make getting into a back straddle easier.

7. We’re ready with simple add-on challenges for those students ready for more!

Here’s an example of how we might simply and quickly add a challenge to a basic back straddle, if we have a stronger student in class.

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There are a million more examples of how we empower both new and long term students in our classes.

In fact, our curriculum is constantly developing based on what we learn from our unique students. This is part of the reason we’re constantly adding new material to our video library. We’re always looking to empower our students (and you) to reach their goals.

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Jordan & Clayton AFO

Jordan Anderson & Clayton Woodson are the co-founders and lead instructors for Aerial Fit. They’ve developed their own unique curriculum on Silks, Lyra, Sling, and Trapeze, that’s structured around making aerial accessible to any body with a strong focus on solid technique and efficient movement. They are also the founders of Circus Building Entertainment, an aerial and circus themed performance company.