Refining Training 1 & 2 and Starting 1st?

In today's lesson with Mike, he had me ride Training tests 1 and 2, which are our first tests of the season at the end of June.
Overall, they went pretty well. The corrections I need to work on are:
- Tipping forward (leaning) at the up transition from trot to canter. I need to think of the "popping a wheelie" up, which makes this nice, lifting transition; instead of a running-into-it transition.
- Working on the free walk across the diaganol. At 3rd level, you maintain the connection. At training, I can throw it away. Not that we want to, but I have been holding poor Willig so tight that he's like "give me more give me more" and I'm all "huh?" up on top, oblivious. This improved like 200%.
- Working on the down transition from trot to walk. I've been giving him the 1-2-3 notice, but then we plummet abruptly into walk. Another easy (yet I never figured it out on my own) fix. I sit, slow the trot down a few steps out, and then start thinking of the elephant's trunk swinging (legs loose and going right-left-right-left) and that makes my hips stay loose, and he just eases like a feather into walk. I had been clamping with my legs and hips as we did the transition. Sigh. Once again, all me.
- Willig was scooting just a bit right down the centerline. This is almost certainly my heavy right hand. Mike suggested riding with a small (5") bridge to become more aware of how often and heavy my right hand is.
- And my circle method worked. I look at the next letter over, and then do the bend to the inside and the inside leg pushing his inside hind leg over, and it comes pretty close each time.
- Avoid rushing the canter. It tends to get longer and stretched out the longer we go, so keep thinking of that wheelie.

After we rode both tests (and then worked on the fixes I described above), we crossed my stirrups and started working in the *new* territory for me. Mike says that at home I should be working 1st and 2nd level so I can ride Training confidently, even with all the show action going on. We did two new-ish things, which were really fun.
First, at the trot, I worked on that feeling of "lifting". I keep the rhythm with my hips, which is hard to explain but easy to feel when Mike says 1-2-1-2, which helps me kind of push into the saddle and have more control. Then I think about pulling my legs back, especially my thighs, applying just a bit with my calf, and at the same time, thinking "lift" with my hands. Every once in a while, nowhere close to 50%, we'll suddenly get it, and I feel Willig's back swell up into me and then it's like floating. It's pretty amazing, but needs lots of work and practice.
Second, at the canter, we worked on popping the wheelie, but also doing the lift, and this one was brand new, so I don't really have vocabulary for it yet. What happened was he did the same sort of floating up with his back, but it was hard to keep him lifted up and not break into trot. This one should be exciting to work on before my next lesson.