This week, the glorious Liza Rose from Fly Circus Space in New Orleans put up a delicious little blurb on the F-books about the importance of practicing good aerial habits. Are you drilling crappy technique into your body? Practicing things week after week with le poo form? Then friend, you’re in for a world of hurt when it comes time to clean that sh*t up.

“Practice doesn’t make perfect. Practice makes permanent. Perfect practice makes perfect permanent.”

I am not a huge fan of DIY in circus. I have no fewer than six internet-based handstand programs – some with training videos, some with PDF’s and photos. Know what none of them have? My coach. During a session, she never stops correcting, spotting, encouraging, educating, and reprimanding when I’m being a lazy ass. It’s constant – push here, squeeze your butt, you’re rotating there, close your chest, squeeze your butt, open the chest, push up more, squeeze your butt, that’s correct, everyone hates this, squeeze your butt, push up more…. Friends, I absolutely cannot evaluate myself that way, even with video. Even with online resources. Even if it *looks* right to me, it’s often only part of the equation.

Last year, I had a lovely student who came in from out of town. She had a few aerial classes under her belt, but had been training a lot on her own. I gave her a small sequence which required an in-air inversion.

Lovely Student: “Oh, I can’t do that, I’ve been trying to get that for years. It just won’t happen.”

Ms Laura: “I’ll bet it will.” She showed every sign of readiness, the technique was just off. Two corrections and one spot later, BOOM. Inversions.

What a Good Coach Really Does

Teaches you all the cool moves, right? Nope. That’s part of what I do, but honestly, a trained monkey could show you a bunch of fancy silk tricks. In a typical class or private, I will:

• Build strong foundations. Every apparatus or discipline has “building blocks” – the foundation skills or movements that you’ve gotta be proficient in before you can move on to the bigger stuff. DIY students (and, let’s be honest, some teachers) often have NO IDEA what those are. Consequently, training frequently consists of flitting around to whatever you happen to have in front of you, like a demented bumble bee. No foundation = building your skills on shifting sands, and tackling training in a way that doesn’t make sense.
• Determine readiness. I see it ALL THE TIME in students coming to me for the first time – the hunger to jump into moves they are nowhere near ready to be chasing. Whether it’s big drops or in-air basic hip key, I evaluate whether a student is ready – from strength to technique to the vocabulary they have under their belt. Flinging yourself into moves a couple of levels away is a one-way ticket to InjuryVille or CrapTechnique Town. Population: you.
• Introduce appropriate progressions. Good coaches build bridges to address your particular weaknesses en route to a skill. For example, many students struggle with in-air inversions. Rather than have them repeatedly heave themselves backwards in hopes that they’ll get it eventually, we look at the kinetic chain for inversions (legs to 90, pelvic tuck, push). Where are they weak? What needs to be addressed? There’s an exercise or progression for that.
• Correct. We boss you around! We also determine what corrections you’re ready to hear and apply. If I gave you all the corrections I had for you at once, you’d keel over dead. Seriously. There’s an unfolding of correction – from biggies (safety, general movement pattern, technique basics) to teenies (engage your feet, dammit!). A good coach knows when you need to hear them.
• Educate. We teach you the cool moves! And how they work and why.
• Manage expectations. I tell you when that shizzle is HARD. I tell you how long it took me, and how long it may take you. I tell you that you will not be dropping that triple for a long time, and why. I remind you that you love this. I understand when you cry. I tell you to do it again, and not to get snot on my fabrics, and that I am invested in your success.
• Encourage – a good coach knows when you need a win, when to smack you with a big old high five, or when to give you The Talk about holding yourself to a higher standard. It’s a lot of reminding students that a) this is hard, and b) if you train it correctly it will come.

CAN you train without a coach? You betcha! But the fact is that you will learn faster and better with a good teacher.

BUT, what if you live, like, 10,000 miles from the closest aerial or circus space? Tune in next week when we look at how the miracle of technology, connections, and some good old fashioned travel can make training with a coach a thing – even if you live a bazillion miles away. Love and pull-ups, Laura

Top photo by Brigid Marz