Three Stages of Motor Learning - tips for Aerial Teachers, an Aerial Teacher Training essential

Have you ever noticed when you're learning an aerial skill that you make lots of mistakes, lose connection to your body, and get confused easily? And then gradually you do it more and more and it starts to feel great? This is a real, studied thing. Teaching and training aerial arts is a fascinating real-time exploration of the three stages of motor learning (a good aerial teacher training will explain this). Understanding this process helps aerial instructors strategize their cueing, knowing when to give lots of support, when to prompt students, when nervous system regulation matters most, and when to introduce challenges and complexity. It also helps students to understand their progress and advocate for themselves in aerial class.

Psychologists Fitts and Posner’s three-stage model of motor learning is one of the most enduring frameworks for understanding how humans acquire new movement patterns - you'll see why it's such a valuable part of aerial teacher training. Let's dive in!

Stage One of motor learning (in the teaching aerial arts context): Cognitive

This is when the aerialist is trying to figure out what is happening and what they’re supposed to do. Everything is new, and in the earlier weeks and months of an aerial journey, there are no patterns to draw from. They’re piecing together steps, trying to remember the order, and thinking through each part of the movement. Lots of mistakes here. It is effortful, messy, tiring, and often uncomfortable.

Stage Two of motor learning (in the teaching aerial arts context): Associative

As the aerialist grasps the concept and steps of the skill, they can start repeating it without constant questions or forgetting, which brings them to the associative stage. The number of mistakes decreases and there is less variability between mistakes. Now the student starts to recognize what the skill should feel like, and when something goes wrong, they have some idea of what happened.

The Bloom Aerial Teacher Training is a 3-month group mentorship + immersive retreat. Space is limited.

Stage 3 of motor learning (in the teaching aerial arts context): Autonomous:

Eventually, with enough repetition and refinement, the skill enters the autonomous stage. This is when the movement becomes automatic, fluid, and reliable. The student can perform the skill without needing to think through each part. They can adjust mid-air, compensate for fatigue, and move with consistency even under pressure. This is the stage where we can start to think about expression, artistry, and teaching.

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Different Aerial Teaching Strategies for Different Motor Learning Stages (why it belongs in Aerial Teacher Training!)

Not all cues work at all stages of learning. Knowing when to cue, what to cue, and how much to cue prevents you from disrupting students’ internal learning and saves you from pouring energy into instruction that can’t actually be integrated.This is something we explore in-depth in the BLOOM Aerial Teacher Training. To learn more, visit www.wakefulascent.com/bloom-teacher-training

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