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.

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!)

For teachers, understanding these stages can help guide your decisions in how much and how you cue. In the cognitive stage, students need a lot of information, cues, and feedback - but not all at once. Breaking longer skills (like a Rebecca split) into parts and then putting them together helps reduce cognitive load. This is the time for demos, explanations, flooreal, and

in-air cueing. Directness and simplicity are the most important now. This is the time that students are most susceptible to becoming frustrated, so the teacher's nervous system regulation and reactions are extremely important. Grab your copy of The Grounded Aerial Teacher to dive deeper into how you influence the room.

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The associative stage is usually the longest. Students are repeating the skill and building their internal map through propricopetive awareness. Talking to them while they do that can actually interfere with their process and slow their progress. Affirmative cues like "good, yes, keep going, perfect," can prevent the student from slipping back into conscious monitoring (characteristic of cognitive stage) by second-guessing themselves, allowing them to keep their groove. Feedback can be provided when they come back down to the ground or if they ask questions in-air. Feedback can now take the shape of inquiry, dialogue, and reflection more than simply feeding information. In the autonomous stage, students have internalized the skill and can reliably perform it with technical excellence. They OWN the skill, whereas in the beginning, they relied on the teacher to complete the skill. Now is the time to start inviting discussions about artistry, theory, expression, innovation, or adding challenge (such as adding a spin, connecting to another skill, doing it higher, etc.)

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Students will have varying timelines. Some prefer more explanation, some prefer less. Some prefer words, others prefer demos. Some will get through associative faster because they have higher proprioceptive capacity, and others will need more time. But the one thing we know is that ALL students need repetition, repetition, repetition!

The Wakeful Ascent aerial teacher training explores the stages of motor learning and more fascinating cognitive layers of learning as applied to aerial arts. To learn more, visit www.wakefulascent.com/trainings