Belated lesson report with Mike

I have been so busy at work that I haven't had time to summarize my lesson from a few weeks ago. The silver lining is that I'm concise, because I forgot most of the details.
1. Work on crisp canter aid. This was a new thing, where I sit about three 'strides' out, then ask with the outside leg - pushing it waaayyy back - and then kind of "pop" both hands up in the air. It feels weird and looks weird and only works some of the time.
2. Work more without stirrups. What's interesting as I do this, there are so many nuanced feelings and I have no ideas which are right and which are wrong. The other thing about this is the kind of surprising amount of pain when I try to "open" my hips - when I think about lifting my legs and rotating them out, those muscles (ligaments?) on the outside of your hip, that spend all day all scrunched up because I sit in a chair at work, s-c-r-e-a-m when I try to stretch them out. After a few minutes of agony, they loosen up though.
3. Work on keeping my heels out of his side. As Shannon pointed out at Peteton, especially when I'm nervous, I scrunch up and my heels come up practically to his pad. So I think about pushing them out and away from him. Mike pointed out that at FEI level, you have to wear spurs, but that made me laugh since 2nd level seems pretty out of reach at this point.
I had been super stressed at work before this lesson, so I wasn't in as receptive a frame of mind as I like to be, to maximize what I'm getting and work on it so I can work on something new starting the next lesson.