Sit down for this one. Literally.

For both of you who regularly read this, you will need to be sitting for this posting ... just like I was - at the trot - not posting, but sitting! (That analogy had so much potential, but I got carried away.)
Unlike many of my prior "ah-ha!" moments with riding, where my crafty and clever body figures out a way to continue not to ride properly until my next lesson, the movement I thought was the proper sitting trot last week really, actually was.
Now, I know for most riders, this isn't a breakthrough.
For me, however, it is. I have been trying to learn how to sit the trot since I was about 16, so for those of you counting, that's about 17 years. Yikes. That was a little hard to write.
And thanks to Mike, I got it.
Now, I can't do it all the time - I can only do it for a few laps, but I can now do it at something slightly less than a working trot - not just the plodding around western trot, and I can also do it with "no hands" (i.e. hands on the reins, where they belong, and not one finger on the pommel).
So Mike was suitably impressed, and my lesson was great. We still have tons and tons to work on, because now we can really get to work.
I started with sitting, and asked him to look at it, to see if I was somehow faking it.
He showed me a better way to cross my stirrups (pull 6" down, twist the bottom over the top so it lies flat and doesn't bruise your inner thigh), and then we worked about half the lesson on sitting trot without stirrups.
He worked on getting my legs longer and straighter, which requires a lot of effort from me thinking about dropping them straight down.
And then we worked on picking up the pace a bit.
He said it's a great start and a world of difference from my first lesson, just a few short lessons ago.
We talked a bit about lower leg - he thinks it's good to work on sitting trot without stirrups (that it's the 2nd stage of a 3 stage process), but that it's not as good for posting trot.
Then we worked on trot to canter transitions. He wants me to think 1 (get ready), 2 (you're about to go), and 3 (ask for it). I sit at 1, slow him down and give him half halts at 2, and then 3, ask for it, is a series of steps: outside leg back with a quick aid (not my squeezing headlock aid), sit tall and up, and ask for it by thinking about getting forward momentum on a swing set (the firm hands on the chain, the stiff back pushing forward). He had to try a variety of analogies for this one, and it was really a struggle. But when we started, Willig ran into the canter in about 4 hurried trot steps, and by the time we ended, it was just 1-2 steps without changing speed. Plus, the one time we really, really got it, I felt it. He just lifted up into canter and it was so smooth.
Willig has been really great. He has been very obedient and listening, and almost ... gasp ... patient. I think now that he's figured out I'm actually riding him, he's got more respect for what I'm asking him to do.
Yesterday we worked on our "homework" jump again. I didn't have the martingale, but I didn't really need it. He did 5-7 jumps over the fence each direction, with a couple little rubs on the ground pole each way, but nothing major, and absolutely no acting up. Then I just jumped off him and put him away.
I got him one of those ear nets with the crochet headpiece, which I think are for bugs, but I've seen the show jumpers wear. It made no difference at all.
There was, of course, much, much more detail to my lesson with Mike, but we're getting to the point where I can't quite articulate what I feel. I definitely feel it, but I've never had riding go so well, and I'm not sure how to put it into words yet.
I can say, however, how wonderful it feels to really be riding Willig instead of just struggling with him. He's happier, and I'm happier, and I'm glad we pushed through it because I feel like a better rider now.