There's a moment every aerial teacher knows—that split second when you sense something is about to happen before it does. A student shifts just slightly wrong in a wrap. A hand grip loosens imperceptibly. A child's focus drifts toward a risky impulse. You move, you adjust, you prevent the problem before anyone else even notices there was one.
This ability—situational awareness—is perhaps the most critical safety skill an aerial instructor can develop. And as it turns out, it's also deeply connected to an expertise many of us in the industry already possess: motherhood.
What Is Situational Awareness?
Situational awareness is more than just keeping your eyes open. According to educational researchers, it's defined as the ability to monitor complex, chaotic environments and attend to key features relevant to assessing understanding and safety. In teaching contexts, it involves three essential levels: perceiving elements in your environment, comprehending their meaning, and projecting what might happen next.
In our aerial studios, this means simultaneously tracking multiple students at different skill levels, recognizing the subtle signs that someone is struggling or about to make an unsafe choice, and anticipating which student needs intervention before the moment becomes critical.
The Mother's Eye: A Natural Foundation
It's no coincidence that this conversation has come up in our studio, and that many have noticed my knack for knowing when a child is about to do something risky or when a student is stuck in a wrap they can't escape from. The truth is, much of this heightened awareness comes being a mother now, to my three adult children, for over 28 years.
While research shows that what we call "maternal instinct" is actually a learned skill developed through countless hours of bonding and experience rather than something innate, the resulting awareness is profound. Mothers develop an extraordinary ability to read subtle cues—a change in breathing patterns, a shift in body language, the quality of silence in a room that signals trouble. We learn to perceive, comprehend, and project danger before it fully materializes.
One study on maternal protective behaviors found that a specific brain region called the locus coeruleus activates every time a mother responds to protect her wandering child, sending signals of heightened alertness throughout the entire brain. This same vigilant scanning we use to keep toddlers safe at intersections translates beautifully to keeping students safe on apparatus.
As mothers, we've logged thousands of hours interpreting non-verbal communication, anticipating needs, and reading the room. When a quiet child suddenly gets too quiet, when energy shifts from focused to chaotic, when body language signals frustration or fear—we notice. And in an aerial studio, those same skills become essential safety tools.
Situational Awareness in Teaching: What Research Tells Us
Educational research on situational awareness reveals fascinating insights into how expert teachers differ from novices. Studies using eye-tracking technology have shown that experienced teachers scan classrooms differently—their gaze patterns efficiently shift between individual students and the class as a whole, monitoring for both engagement and safety concerns.
Expert teachers develop what researchers call "pattern recognition," allowing them to quickly identify when something is off. They can spot the early warning signs that novice teachers miss entirely. This mirrors exactly what happens in our aerial studios—recognizing that a student's hand placement is just slightly wrong before they struggle with a hold, or sensing that a child's distraction is about to lead them to try something unsafe.
Athletic Coaching and Situational Awareness
The athletic world has also extensively studied situational awareness, particularly in contact sports where safety is paramount. Coaches have found that situational awareness can be taught and developed systematically. In football coaching, for example, experts emphasize teaching players to evaluate situations, make decisions, and understand when and how contact will happen to keep them safer.
One coach noted that understanding your players' situational awareness levels is "one of the best things you can do as a coach." Young athletes, like young aerial students, often operate in "tunnels"—focused on one thing while missing peripheral threats. Experienced coaches develop drills that specifically build this awareness, teaching athletes to scan their environment continuously and process multiple inputs simultaneously.
This applies directly to aerial teaching. We can deliberately design our classes to help students develop their own situational awareness—teaching them to check their wraps before committing to their full weight into it, to be aware of other students' positions in shared spaces so they aren't caught off guard by a stray limb, and to recognize their own physical and mental states before attempting challenging moves.
Putting It Into Practice: Safety Through Awareness
Here's how situational awareness actively protects students in our studio:
Reading Body Language and Energy: I can often tell when a student is about to make a risky choice not because they announce it, but because their energy shifts. They get that look in their eye, their body language changes, or they suddenly become very still in a calculating way. This is the "perception" level of situational awareness at work.
Diagnosing Problems in Real-Time: When I see a student wrapped in silks in a way they can't escape, I'm not just seeing the current position—I'm mentally rewinding the sequence to understand how they got there. This "comprehension" level allows me to give specific guidance: "Move your left hand two inches higher" or "Shift your hip backward before you try to unwrap."
Anticipating Next Moves: The "projection" level is perhaps most critical for safety. When I position myself near a particular student, it's often because I've projected that they're reaching the edge of their capacity or are about to attempt something they're not quite ready for. This anticipation allows for proactive intervention rather than reactive rescue.
Developing Your Own Situational Awareness
For fellow instructors looking to strengthen this skill, research suggests several evidence-based strategies:
Deliberate Scanning: Consciously practice scanning the entire room on a schedule. Don't let your attention get trapped on one student. Set mental reminders to check all zones of your studio space regularly.
Pattern Recognition Training: After each class, mentally replay moments where you intervened. What cues tipped you off? Over time, you'll recognize these patterns faster and more automatically.
Pause and Process: During training sessions, occasionally pause the action. You can even make this a game you play with your students. Can you identify where each student is, what they're working on, and who might need support next? This exercise strengthens your environmental awareness.
Trust Your Gut: Research on parental information-seeking shows that intuitive feelings often trigger important protective responses. If something feels off, investigate—even if you can't immediately articulate why.
Simulate Stress Conditions: Practice maintaining awareness during chaotic moments. The more you train under realistic conditions with multiple competing demands, the more automatic your scanning becomes.
The Gift and Responsibility
Being able to sense when a child is about to do something risky, knowing exactly how a student got tangled, or recognizing the precise adjustment that will help them nail a move—these aren't supernatural abilities. They're the result of experience, attention, and care compounded over time. For many of us who are mothers, we came to teaching with years of this training already embedded in our neural pathways.
But with this awareness comes responsibility. Our students trust us to be that extra set of eyes, to catch what they miss, to protect them as they learn to fly. Research shows that effective situational awareness in teaching is directly linked to student safety and learning outcomes. When we notice everything, when we stay present and vigilant, we create the secure environment where true learning and growth can happen.
And perhaps most importantly, we model this awareness for our students. Just as we learned to read our children's cues and anticipate their needs, we can teach our students to develop their own situational awareness—to know their bodies, recognize their limits, and make safer choices independently.
The studio, like parenthood, is a space where vigilance and love intersect. Where awareness isn't about control, but about creating the conditions for others to soar safely.
What's your experience with situational awareness in teaching? Drop a comment below—I'd love to hear how you've developed this skill and what signs you watch for in your own students.
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