My Coaching Team

I’m still in the dark about what the industry standard is for aerial silks, but I once heard from a high-level former figure skater that in their sport, it is common to have multiple coaches rather than just one.

To be more precise, you don’t just run with a coach; you run alongside an entire coaching team. You have a main coach who does a little bit of everything and takes responsibility for the athlete’s total growth, while a choreographer acts as a specialist specifically to design the program. Furthermore, you receive guidance from various specialized technical coaches such as jump technicians, spin technicians, and even ballet instructors. It is a highly rational, functional entity that doesn’t expect omniscience from a single individual.

As for me, I was just an amateur, hardly a senior-level athlete. Yet, I possessed a fierce determination to do anything within my power to improve my performance by even 1%. So from the very first aerial routine I created, I was conscious of building my own coaching team.

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First, there was my Main Coach, with whom I shared weekly progress and discussed the path forward (she also doubled as my spin technician). Next was my Sub-Coach, whom I asked to relentlessly correct my form down to the very angle of my fingertips (and who, in the end, consulted on everything from technique to costumes). Finally, there was the Technical Coach who focused exclusively on power moves and strong, masculine expression.

While these three were external experts, my coaching team also included three roles that I fulfilled myself.

The first was the Data Analyst (a role I’ve mentioned before). This was the strategist who quantified success rates, tracked spin speeds, set tangible goals, and reverse-engineered my diet and practice menus. The "Engineer and Researcher" persona within me sat in this chair, dissecting practice videos night after night. If you feel the necessity of such a role but find it doesn't suit your temperament, I believe there is immense value in asking someone else to be your analyst and strategist.

Then, there was Music Production as part of the performance. Despite writing a blog like this, I consider myself more of a pianist than an aerialist. Having a deep connection to sound, it felt natural to arrange the music myself, play the keys, and weave my musical expression into the routine. In truth, this may have come more naturally to me than manipulating my body in mid-air.

Finally, the Choreographer. I felt that the very meaning of doing aerial lay in weaving the composition and choreography myself. This was a seat I could not yield to anyone else.

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I invite you, the reader, to imagine your own coaching team. As you try to map out the actual members and their roles, you would likely find that the most elusive role that takes a different shape for every individual is that of the Main Coach.

The distance between a main coach and an athlete varies with every pair. Some relationships are strictly focused on technical aerial instruction, while others delve into the student's private life to support their total growth. You cannot give a single, fixed definition to the duties of a main coach; they change like a chameleon depending on the relationship. Yet, if I were to embrace that difficulty and still express the very core of their job through my own admitted bias, I believe it is delivering the perfect set to the athlete.

A genius setter who delivers a set that, if struck, is guaranteed to score. A surgically precise set that identifies exactly where the opening lies in the vast world of aerial and clearly shows the single path to victory.
A set that is "guaranteed to score if struck" is, by its very nature, a demanding one for the attacker. It’s a ball placed at a height you’d never reach without a leap of faith, knowing it requires a bit of a stretch beyond your limits. Even so:

"I know you and I can do this."

It is that very guidance that fills an athlete’s body and soul with an irrepressible drive, allowing them to strike from their absolute peak, without holding back.
When I find myself responsible for someone else’s growth (not limited to aerial), I want to be that kind of guide. One who bestows a stirring sense of meaning, accompanied by quiet compassion and conviction.

And the athlete’s duty must be the mirror image of this: to win the silent trust of the coach so that they are granted such a demanding set, and then to seize that path to victory with everything they have.

For even the most flawless coaching team, built around yourself with perfect logic, will never resonate without the unseen trust that dwells between people, remaining as silent and hollow as a piano with broken strings.