Picture a cartwheel.

Now take picture the cartwheel without touching your hands on the ground. This is called aerial.  Having some trouble? It is ok, let me put this in perception. When doing a cartwheel you have your hands on the ground and your legs go over and around your hands. When doing an aerial you use your head as the pivot point but you head and hands don’t touch the ground. The only thing that touches the ground is your feet. I know I sound crazy, I am, but this is real.
An aerial is very hard to learn. You would think it would be easy to do one, you just don’t put down your hands. Well you are wrong! You have to have height and break the habit of putting your hands down. You start learning by doing dive cartwheels. These help you learn to jump up and out in your aerial. Breaking he hand habit is a bit harder to learn. The only thing you can really do is practice. The hardest thing is getting over the fear of falling on your head when you start learning. An aerial is very complicated because the only way really to get it is to practice unlike a flip were you have drills to help the process.
An aerial is usually done on the ground but you can also do one on a trampoline, beam, or in ribbons.  The benefit of doing it on the ribbons or trampoline is that it is easer when you start learning. Having extra bounce or pull room helps when you are first learning. Doing things on the beam are almost impossible.  Think of doing things on something 4 inches wide. You cant even put your two feet side by side. Many people don’t do aerials on the beam because there is very little room for error. That does not mean it is impossible though, you can be very good at it and it might seem easy. You don’t just have to do aerials on the floor.
Gymnasts are not the only one’s that do aerials. Dancers who have a pop or modern twist on dancing might be found do gymnastics like thinks like aerials. Cheerleaders also do aerials. Cheerleaders do more then just wave pomp pomp’s and get the crowd excited. Cheerleading and dancing are both sports. A sport is an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment. Is cheerleading and dancing not that? Many other sports do things gymnasts do.
An Aerial is a very complicated and hard to learn skill. It takes months and months to learn. It takes a lot of hard work and dedication. You might be close on day, the next you might be back to square one. Once you get really good you can start making it look cool and do it on cool things. Once you learn an aerial you can start learning other cool stuff similar to aerials. Aerials are cool looking things that everyone will stop to watch.

I can do that!