Teaching Aerial Skills to Visual Learners: Showing, Not Just Telling

But here's the challenge: truly effective visual teaching in aerial arts requires instructors who can not only demonstrate the skills they're teaching but do so in slow motion, pause mid-skill to highlight key elements, and physically show proper muscle engagement and body positioning. Unfortunately, this happens "way too often" at studios where instructors rely on videos of other people performing skills rather than demonstrating themselves. At our studio, we maintain a different standard: instructors cannot teach a class unless they can personally perform—and demonstrate slowly—every skill in that class curriculum.

The Science Behind Visual Learning in Motor Skills

Visual learning in sports and motor skills isn't just about "watching someone do it." It's a complex process involving multiple visual systems working together.

Visual Processing in Athletic Performance

In training, coaches commonly present new information visually through demonstrations and verbally through explanations to the athlete. This dual approach works because the visual system processes information differently than the auditory or kinesthetic systems.

Research on elite athletes shows something fascinating: professional soccer, hockey, and rugby players are significantly better than amateurs or non-athletes at processing fast-moving, complicated scenes. Even more telling, while amateurs at first did not outperform non-athletes in visual tracking tasks, they did get better as they practiced, suggesting that athletes are better at visual learning because of extensive training rather than innate visual ability.

What does this mean for aerial instruction? Visual skills can be trained. Your students' ability to learn from watching improves with practice and proper instruction.

How Demonstration Facilitates Motor Learning

Strong evidence supports the conclusion that the opportunity to observe a skilled or expert model enhances motor learning, with the benefit being greatest in the early stages of skill acquisition and enhanced when demonstrations are provided prior to and interspersed during practice.

The key word here is "observe." True observation means students are actively watching, processing spatial relationships, noting body positions, and building a mental representation of the movement. This is why passive video-watching often fails and why learning aerial from videos alone, especially without extensive aerial arts training is so dangerous—students need guided observation with intentional focus points.

When clinicians teach patients a new motor activity, they often provide an ideal demonstration of the task as a model, expecting to activate the mirror neuron system in the patient, leading them to imagine the body movement from a first-person perspective. This mental rehearsal, triggered by observation, activates many of the same brain areas as actual movement, creating neural pathways before the student even attempts the skill physically.

The Learning Model Effect

Interestingly, research challenges the assumption that only "perfect" demonstrations help. Recent research has shown that it might be pedagogically appropriate to use more unskilled models that stimulate cognitive effort in observers, with the use of learning models increasing learning from a theoretical perspective.

This means watching someone work through a skill, make corrections, and improve can actually be more educational than watching flawless execution—because it engages the student's problem-solving abilities and error-detection mechanisms. However, an unskilled model whose performance is better than the participants' is beneficial for improving motor performance, but a model showing less skill than the participants is not.

For aerial instruction, this suggests that demonstrating the progression—having students take turns and watch the instructor point out things that are off, then provide corrections—can be highly effective.

The Multi-Modal Reality: No Student Learns Through Vision Alone

Before we dive into specific visual teaching techniques, let's address a crucial point: learning styles are preferences, not limitations. While some students have a strong propensity for visual learning, they don't only learn visually, and they shouldn't be taught that way.

Learning style is generally defined as a learner's preferred ways of responding cognitively and behaviorally to learning tasks, and is a state-like learning preference that changes depending on the learning environment or context. This means:

• A "visual learner" still benefits enormously from verbal cues and physical corrections
• The same student might prefer different modalities for different types of skills
• Combining multiple teaching approaches produces better learning outcomes than any single approach alone

That's why, even in this article focused on visual learners, we'll discuss how to integrate verbal explanation and kinesthetic guidance with visual demonstration. The goal isn't to teach "purely visually"—it's to ensure your visual teaching is strong enough that visual learners thrive while all students benefit.

Why Instructors Must Demonstrate: The Irreplaceable Value of Live Performance

There's a trend in some aerial studios that deeply concerns me: instructors who teach primarily through videos of other people performing skills. While supplemental video can be valuable, it cannot replace live instructor demonstration. Here's why:

1. Slow-Motion Demonstration Reveals Critical Details

When you demonstrate a skill live, you can slow it down to whatever speed your students need. You can pause mid-movement. You can repeat specific transitions multiple times. Athletes have self-reported using slow-motion imagery most often for skill and strategy acquisition, and when they use slow-motion, the imagery session concludes with real-time speed to reinstate important temporal elements of the skill.

Pre-recorded videos, even with slow-motion capabilities, can't adapt to what your specific students need to see in that moment. Live demonstration allows you to respond: "I can see you're all struggling with the transition—let me show just that part three more times, very slowly."

2. Mid-Skill Pauses Allow for Explicit Teaching

When you pause mid-skill during a live demonstration, you can:

• Point to the specific muscles you're engaging
• Show exactly where your weight is distributed
• Demonstrate how your body is oriented in space relative to the apparatus
• Indicate which hand/foot is doing what
• Highlight the tension pattern in the fabric or apparatus

None of this is possible with a video you find on YouTube or Instagram.

3. Live Demonstration Builds Trust and Credibility

Students need to trust that you understand the skill from the inside. When you can physically show them every step, every transition, every subtle weight shift, they believe you when you give corrections. They know you've felt what they're about to feel.

Moreover, when students see you demonstrate, they're observing a body they see regularly, moving on the same apparatus they'll be using, in the same physical space. This specificity aids transfer of learning.

4. You Can Adapt the Demonstration to Student Bodies

When teaching live, you can modify your demonstration for different body types, proportions, and abilities. You can show, "If you have short legs like me, you'll need to..." or "If you're more flexible like Sarah, you might have to..."

Pre-recorded videos can't make these real-time adaptations.

Our Studio Standard: Demonstrate What You Teach

At our studio, we hold a firm policy: you cannot instruct a class unless you can personally demonstrate every skill in that class in slow motion. This means:

• If you can't do a Figure 8 Footlock smoothly and slowly, you don't teach Beginning Silks
• If you can't execute and slow down a Hip Key, you don't teach Intermediate
• If you can't demonstrate the proper body orientation throughout an entire drop in our curriculum, you don't teach that level

This isn't about elitism. It's about effective teaching. Slow-motion demonstration is the cornerstone of visual learning, and if you can't perform it, you can't provide the visual input your students need.

Key Principles for Teaching Visual Learners

Based on research and our practical teaching experience, here are the foundational principles for visual instruction:

1. Demonstrate First, Explain After

For visual learners, the demonstration is the primary information source. Show the complete skill first, then break it down. This gives them the "whole picture" before you dissect it into parts.

2. Use Multiple Viewing Angles

Students process spatial information differently depending on their viewing angle. Demonstrating a skill in a spin is ideal when possible.

3. Isolate Key Moments with Freezes

Visual feedback promotes skill acquisition and motor learning, with studies indicating benefits in controlled settings and various sports. Live demonstration allows you to create these "freeze frames" naturally by pausing at critical moments.

4. Show the Pathway, Not Just the Position

It's not enough to show where the body ends up—show the path it takes to get there. Visual learners need to see the trajectory of movement through space.

5. Layer Demonstrations: Full Speed, Then Slow, Then Isolated

• First: full speed so students see the timing and flow
• Second: slow motion so they can process the sequence
• Third: isolated sections for complex transitions
• Finally: back to full speed to reintegrate the whole

6. Use Your Body as a Teaching Tool

Point to muscles as you engage them. Touch the apparatus where contact should occur. Physically show tension and relaxation. Your body becomes a three-dimensional textbook.

7. Combine Visual with Verbal Cues

Even for visual learners, verbal cues play an important role in influencing the situational interests of students receiving visual feedback, and may be a key factor in making visual information useful. As you demonstrate, narrate: "Watch my right hand as it reaches up... see how my hips shift forward... notice my knee stays locked..."

Helping Visual Learning "Stick": Retention Strategies

Studies indicate that visual feedback promotes skill acquisition and motor learning in controlled settings and various sports. But demonstration is only the first step—we need to help students retain what they've seen.

1. Immediate Mental Rehearsal

After demonstration, before physical practice:

"Close your eyes and visualize yourself doing exactly what I just showed you. See your body moving through each position. Where do your hands go first? How do your legs move? Picture it clearly."

This mental imagery, grounded in the visual demonstration they just observed, strengthens the motor program.

2. Verbal Description of Visual Memory

Ask students to describe what they saw:

"Talk me through what I just demonstrated. What happened first? Then what? Where were my feet when my hands reached up?"

This forces them to convert visual memory into conscious understanding, strengthening retention.

3. Teach-Back Demonstration

Have students who successfully execute the skill demonstrate for their peers. As they do:

• Ask them to slow down at the same points you did
• Have them narrate what they're doing
• Let other students ask questions about what they're seeing

When visual learners see a peer-level demonstration (someone closer to their skill level than the instructor), it can stimulate cognitive effort and problem-solving in observers.

4. Progressive Complexity in Visual Input

Don't show everything at once. Layer visual complexity:

Step 1: Show the entry pathway Step 2: Add on the next step and enhance the instruction with additional information, like critical hand/foot positioning Step 3: Add on the next part of the sequence with additional informaiton about muscle engagement and tensions they should feel in the movements. Step 4: Add on the final step of the sequence and then point out how they can refine the quality of movement (pointed toes, straight lines, etc.)

This prevents visual overload and allows students to build increasingly sophisticated mental representations.

Identifying Visual Learners in Your Class

While we teach using multiple modalities, it helps to identify which students are strongly visual so you can provide extra visual support when needed. Visual learners often:

• Watch demonstrations very intently, sometimes moving their bodies slightly while watching
• Ask for "one more demo" frequently
• Struggle when you only explain verbally without showing
• Excel after watching you demonstrate but struggle to follow verbal-only corrections
• Frequently ask to see the skill from a different angle
• Benefit dramatically when they or a parent film them and they can see their own movement
• Remember sequences better when they've seen them rather than heard them described
• Often close their eyes to "replay" the visual memory before attempting the skill

When you identify these students, you know to:

• Always demonstrate before or during corrections for them
• Provide video resources
• Show rather than tell whenever possible
• Use visual analogies ("Make a straight line with your body like a pencil") over abstract ones

Practical Implementation Tips

For Classes with Mixed Levels

When you have beginners and advanced students in the same class:

• Demonstrate the basic version first
• Then show progressions and variations
• Advanced students can observe the refinements while beginners focus on the foundation
• Both groups get visual input appropriate to their level

When You're Tired or Injured

If you can't demonstrate at full capacity, which we all know happens from time to time:

• Use your best students to demonstrate (with credit to them)
• Use video as a supplement (but explain why you're using video instead of live demo)
• Demonstrate partially—show the entry even if you can't complete the full skill
• Break the skill into smaller chunks you can demonstrate

But remember: if you cannot demonstrate a skill at all, you should not be teaching it. Students deserve visual instruction from someone who can show them properly.

For Very Complex Sequences

For combinations or choreography:

• Break it into 3-4 move chunks
• Demonstrate each chunk multiple times
• Then show how chunks connect
• Finally, show the complete sequence
• Return to chunks for practice, then rebuild the whole

When Students Learn at Different Paces

Visual learners who "get it" quickly can help slower visual learners:

• Pair fast learners with those still processing
• Have successful students demonstrate while you narrate
• Create a "show me" culture where students help each other see details

The Integration: Visual + Verbal + Kinesthetic

Remember, even in an article about visual learners, the best teaching always integrates multiple modalities. Here's what that looks like in practice:

You demonstrate (visual) while narrating (verbal) and then provide hands-on adjustments (kinesthetic).

"Watch me bring my leg up and over—see how it stays straight? That's because my quad and core are engaged. Now you try... yes, good! Let me just adjust your hip angle slightly..." [physically guides student's hip]

This multi-sensory approach ensures that:

• Visual learners get the demonstration they need
• Verbal learners get the explanation
• Kinesthetic learners get the physical feedback
• ALL students get a richer, more complete learning experience

And critically, since learning style is a state-like learning preference that changes depending on learning environment or context, the same student might be more visual for one skill and more kinesthetic for another. By always incorporating all three modalities, you serve every student, every time.

Conclusion

Teaching visual learners in aerial arts is about more than just "showing them the trick." It requires:

• Instructors who can personally demonstrate every skill they teach, in slow motion, from multiple angles
• Strategic use of pause points, freeze frames, and isolated transitions
• Supplemental video resources for follow-up and review
• Reference poses that create visual checkpoints
• Integration with verbal and kinesthetic instruction for maximum learning

The difference between an instructor who simply "shows" a skill and one who truly teaches visually is profound. True visual teaching means your body becomes a dynamic textbook—demonstrable, pausable, repeatable, and adaptable to each student's needs.

At our studio, we maintain the standard that you must be able to perform and slowly demonstrate every skill you teach because we know that visual learning is not passive watching. It's active observation, guided by expert demonstration, that builds the neural pathways students need to succeed.

When you can demonstrate a Crossback Straddle in slow motion, pause mid-inversion to show exactly which muscles are engaging, adjust your demonstration for different body types, and repeat the transition five times from three different angles—that's when visual learning happens. That's when students transform what they see into what they can do.

In my next article, I'll explore kinesthetic learners—those students who need to feel the movement in their bodies to understand it. I'll discuss hands-on teaching techniques, the role of proprioceptive feedback, and how to help these tactile learners develop their aerial skills.

Remember: the best teaching recognizes that every student has elements of visual, verbal, and kinesthetic learning. By strengthening all three approaches in your instruction, you create an environment where every student can thrive, regardless of their primary learning preference.

Peggy Ployhar, Owner Eternal Aerial Arts

How do you incorporate live demonstration into your teaching? What techniques have helped your visual learners succeed? Share your experiences and favorite visual teaching strategies in the comments below!