There are many things going on in an aerial. But when you watch someone who's been doing it for a while, you might think it looks easy. Maybe even effortless. This is because once you are able to take advantage of the principles that make up an aerial then a side aerial is indeed easy and maybe even effortless.
When you push off the bottom leg in an aerial there is a moment in time that you are suspended in mid air. During that moment you must make contact with the floor before you begin to descend. If you try to get your landing leg down during the decent then its too late and you will feel like you are not going to make it. In addition to touching the floor with your hands your landing may be close to the ground and your landing leg may be too far back. This may produce a forward landing on your ankle and your reflex is to reach out with your hands. Plus you might over bend your landing leg and land on your knee as well.
The way to avert these shortcomings is to make the action in the air fast. Speed is good. Sometimes it helps to speed up your approach. Sometimes it helps to run into the aerial faster. Sometimes it helps to kick the back leg up as fast as you can. Sometimes it helps to put more power into the whole effort.
Another aspect which needs to be fast is what happens in mid air when the bottom foot leaves the floor. Looking at the take off in relation to the landing is the sum total of a half turn. Depending on the amount of twist you have completed during the kicking phase will determine how much you need to twist in order to square off your aerial in mid air to finish the half twist before you land. You must finish the half twist and you must do it as fast as you can when your bottom foot leaves the floor.
Twist your hips and square off the aerial as fast as you can in mid air right as your bottom foot leaves the floor.
Another aspect which needs to be fast is what you do with the kicking leg in mid air. The kicking leg is also the landing leg. This kicking leg cannot stall once you come off the bottom foot. In other words, keep that kicking leg moving. Pull that kicking leg down faster than you kicked it up and get your foot under your nose as fast as you can using the contraction strength in your thigh muscles.
Add to all of this perfect timing with your arm swing. Whether you use a bent arm technique or a cross arm technique, or arms out to the sides, it helps to synchronize your arms so that at the moment you push off your bottom foot, your arms come to their peak in the arm swing where they lock and lift you into the air from their momentum. The push from your bottom leg should come at the same time that you get a lift from your arms.
Another important aspect in an aerial is the way you push off from your bottom leg. There are two coaching camps with two different opinions. One says you should push off from a straight or nearly straight leg and follow through from the ball of your foot. The other camp says to bend your front knee as much as 90 degrees and come in low before you push off of your bottom foot. Beginners are usually taught to bend the front leg and later when the aerial is advanced they are taught to push off of a straight leg. The most advanced way is to do an aerial with no arm swing whatsoever and straight legs landing on the ball of the front foot in a weightless manner. The extended ankle is enough to receive an advanced gymnast's weight if they land on the ball of the foot before they put their heel down.
My advice to you is that you start with a bent front leg push off and get a good push from that leg so that you jump up as high as you can and as fast as you can. I also insist that you bend your landing leg but please get your foot under your nose.
Another important aspect in the way you push off from your bottom leg is the angle of your push. If you travel a long distance on your attempts then you are pushing at a forward angle. Pushing at a forward angle may keep you in the air longer but it also means that you are gliding in the air low to the floor. You need room to land your foot under your nose. If the aerial feels like its low and like you don't have room for your foot then you will probably put your hands down no matter how long you stayed in the air.
In addition to staying in the air using good timing on your arm lift and a good push from your bottom leg, it is also necessary to go as high as possible. Your push angle should make you go up and not out. As a matter of fact, when you push off the floor effectively then it might feel like a gainer or like you are pushing back. In other words block. Block so your aerial travels up and over.
To help learn aerials some coaches like to teach a butterfly leap or kick or its usually just called a butterfly. The butterfly goes around the side and may interfere with the technique you need for a proper side aerial. However, if you can manage to avoid overlapping the two skills then the butterfly can help you to get used to going from one foot to the other without putting your hands down. Start with baby (low and shallow) butterflies and build it up until you are making full fledged high ones. Then it should be easy to transfer that feeling of going from one foot to the other to the side aerial.
Sometimes it helps to make fists and close them tightly. This is almost a psychological way to trick your mind so that your body reacts like a reflex to land on your feet. Fists are not the way your aerial should stay but in the learning stages you might benefit from trying this for a while.
Flexibility is also a factor. The further you can get your kicking leg to go over before you jump off the floor, then the less distance your landing foot will need to travel. For some flexible gymnasts an aerial feels like they are barely hopping from one foot to the other. My suggestion is to take advantage of the flexibility that you have and get your kicking leg over as far as you can.
hope it helps somee
