Acrobatics look COOL! But they also, perhaps, are kind of a scary thing to approach. In this article I aim to teach you what all of the fundamental skills to learning acrobatics are. I also hope to help you see that, when a scary-looking thing gets broken down into its parts, it doesn’t seem so scary anymore and, maybe - after putting those different parts together - it’s even possible that you can do that scary thing yourself!

Let’s go!

Understanding Acrobatics

Before getting into specific acrobatic skills, it's important to know that acrobatics isn’t just about doing backflips or gainers or helicopteros. It’s about mastering your body's movement. It’s about balance, coordination, and spatial awareness. 

And, by integrating acrobatics into your training, you can significantly improve these foundational skills, which in turn can improve your performance in other sports and athletic areas! 

The Essential Skill of Rolling

Rolling: perhaps the most fundamental skill in acrobatics. 

Rolling serves as the building block for more complex movements like flips and twists, and learning to roll correctly will help you develop the ability to control rotational movements, which is essential for executing acrobatic maneuvers safely and effectively.

Pre-training: 

Simply using your legs or arms to create momentum and making your body roll either forward or backward is the very, very first thing you’ll want to get used to as part of your roll training. 

Forward Roll:

Now it’s time to get used to going over your head, starting with the forward roll. For the forward roll, you’ll start by squatting down and tucking your chin to your chest. You’ll lean your weight forward and let your body go over your head, allowing your body to roll over the upper part of your back rather than putting any weight on your head. It’s important to maintain a rounded spine throughout the motion. With practice, you'll develop the momentum needed to roll from that squat-starting position, over your head and to your feet in one fluid motion.

Backward Roll:

Next up is the backward roll! The backward roll feels scarier for a lot of people,  because it involves moving in a direction that feels less natural. How to get over that fear? Practice it, hundreds of times :). 

To begin, as with your pre-training, you can practice rolling backward without going over your head, using your legs to generate momentum. 

Once comfortable, you can progress to a full backward roll. (Write sentence about how to to that)

Remember to keep a rounded spine, just like in the forward roll.

Side Roll:

The side roll, or shoulder roll, is another valuable skill that introduces lateral movement. For the side roll, you want to use the longest possible path across your body, starting from your hand, moving through your elbow, shoulder, back, opposite hip, and finally ending with the knee and foot, like this: 

Take it nice and easy at first, and then you can gradually increase your speed and fluidity with it as you become more comfortable.

The Cartwheel

The cartwheel is a versatile acrobatic skill and can serve as the foundation for more advanced movements like the roundoff, aerial, and helicoptero. Are you picturing your PE classes from elementary school yet? It’s time to bring those days back! 

Cartwheels also improve your spatial awareness and balance, both of which are obviously super important for acrobatics.

When you’re ready to do the full cartwheel, you’ll do it from the standing position. But to start off, get lowwww. Take a look: 

The very first steps might feel redundantly easy, but they are a strong foundation to build on and work towards more advanced movements. And, for the cartwheels, as well as all other movements, going step-by-step will help you understand the sequence of movements before attempting the full thing. 

For the cartwheel, as you become more confident, you can add height and momentum, gradually transforming this basic movement into a dynamic cartwheel.

Kipping

Kipping is an important skill to learn as part of your acrobatics journey, and knowing how to kip will help you with a lot of different maneuvers, such as the bar kip, head spring, or front handspring. 

The kip-up, for example, is a pretty sweet-looking and powerful movement where you use your hips effectively to propel yourself off the ground. Check it out :)

When doing the kip-up, focus on driving your hips upward. This upward motion is the key to creating the momentum needed for a successful kip-up. Once you get comfortable with the kip-up, you can start incorporating more advanced variations, such as performing a kip-up from a forward roll or using the technique in a head spring.

I’ve actually already got a full tutorial on how to do kipping if you’re interested in this skill in particular, you can check that out here.

Twisting and Spinning

Twisting: another important component of acrobatics, which involves rotation around the vertical axis of your body. When you start out learning to twist, you can begin by practicing spins on one foot. Use your upper body to initiate the rotation and your arms to control the speed and direction of your spin. Anyone who’s sat in a spinny office chair before knows the trick: tuck your arms(or legs) in, spin faster; spread your arms(or legs) out, spin slower.

As you improve along different progressions involving twists, you will eventually incorporate jumping into the maneuvers. Here, the same principles will apply, but with the added challenge of staying in control while you’re airborne. 

Twisting is a fundamental skill to acrobatics as well as a gateway to more advanced movements, such as 540s, corkscrews, and full twists, which are staples in both gymnastics and tricking.

Handstands

Handstands are a cornerstone of acrobatics, integral to many movements like back handsprings, front handsprings, and cartwheels. When you think of handstands, you likely think of the importance of balancing, but another important aspect to handstands is learning to control your body while in an inverted position. This is a skill that is essential for a wide range of acrobatic techniques.

I’ve got tons of tutorials and videos on handstands. If you’re starting from the very beginning with them, I wrote a start-from-scratch article about how to do a handstand here. 

Jumping

Jumping is another skill that plays an important role in acrobatics.  And while it may seem straightforward, jumping, in fact, isn’t just jumping. There are different ways to jump, and each different way has its own setup and technique. For example, a running setup is crucial for front flips, while a standing backflip requires a different approach.

If you’re interested specifically in learning a backflip, by the way, I’ve got an article on it here, or a YT video about how to do it here.

To improve your jumping ability, practice various jumping drills that focus on height, timing, and body position. The higher you can jump, the more time you'll have to execute complex movements in the air, making jumping a valuable skill to work on as you progress in your acrobatic training.

Beginner-Friendly Acrobatic Moves

Once you've established a solid foundation with the basics, you can start experimenting with more advanced moves that still look pretty sweet! Here are a few to try:

Macaco (Monkey Flip):

Want to be able to do a backflip one day? The Macaco is a good place to start. In a way, it could be viewed as a prerequisite for the backflip as well as the back handspring, and it also does look cool all on its own. 

(macaco clip)

Butterfly and Raiz:

These tricking moves offer a unique way to perform acrobatic maneuvers without going completely upside down. They require a combination of twisting and jumping, making them both challenging and fun to learn.

Wheel Variations:

The one-armed wheel and forward wheel are variations of the cartwheel that introduce new elements of balance and coordination. As you master these, you can work towards the helicoptero, a more advanced skill that combines elements of spinning and flipping.

Conclusion

Rolling, twisting, jumping, spinning, kipping, handstanding, cartwheeling… phew! That’s a lot. Obviously, there is a lot that goes into acrobatics. Chip away at the different skills and training components needed to perform acrobatics, though, and I truly believe that things will come together for you, and that the movements you dream of achieving can, with practice, be reached. 

I hope this article has given you some ideas on where to start, and good luck on your acrobatics journey! Please, if you have any questions or comments, let me know, and I’ll be sure to reply to them.