Whether you’re on the studying or the teaching end, aerial training is hard work… but with enough time and support, you’ll have no problem helping young circus students learn to fly. Spectacle Blue‘s Robin Szuch breaks down the school’s philosophy on training the next generation of aerial instructors.

Even for the highest-flying aerialists, soaring around the venue is no simple feat. Unlike wrens or ravens, people are not built for flight; we need the right tools to achieve it—the right kinds of instruction, and of instructors. Enter Robin Szuch. An aerial instructor and past performer herself, Robin comprises half of the duo behind Spectacle Blue, an Alberta-based school and studio space that extends the aerial chain by offering training for both circus students and their instructors. Since its 2014 founding, Spectacle Blue has worked with Canadian teachers from disciplines within and beyond circus to help them establish their own aerial training practices through a carefully planned course that’s packed with safety tips, support, and research-backed techniques to let them and their students soar. Robin knows that experience matters, that patience is a teacher’s greatest virtue in the classroom—that taking one’s time with students can make a...