Oh! That's what "ride every step" means!

For the last several months, during both of my lessons, I have heard the words, but have felt kind of cloudy. I try to do what Mike or Shannon are saying, but it doesn't seem to make total sense (or I feel like I'm already doing it) or have much effect. But the last couple of lessons with each of them, it's like each lesson a major light bulb has gone off, and slightly embarrassingly, over really mundane stuff.
In yesterday's lesson with Shannon, after the last lesson's break through on keeping the contact, she was telling me to quit moving my left hand so much. I was pretty sure I wasn't moving my hand, but then suddenly, I felt it. Every step, I give just a bit. And then take it back. And so if I focused on that and planted my hand in place, Willig could relax. And like Shannon said, he's actually nice in the sense that he's obvious about when I'm doing it right, so I get rewarded for riding properly by almost immediately feeling the improvement.
I haven't been riding much or hard (still moving and getting the house ready for sale), so he's been a bit of a handful. He's harder to bend, less responsive to the aids, and gets skittish. But that made for a great "learning opportunity" on how to ride that during the lesson, and once again, Shannon didn't disappoint.
The two positive signs were that when I'm riding on my normal schedule, I'm actually making my life easier - i.e. he's overall more fun and enjoyable to ride (kind of a surprise, because I've assumed all my habits are so bad that I just make them worse between lessons). And second is that I CAN ride him when he's being skittish and has low responsiveness - I have acquired the skills and tools!
The big break through on the flat was that moving left hand and needing to think about "planting" it.
Then we went outside to jump. I asked for it, purely because I 100% didn't want to do it. We haven't been riding much outside, I certainly haven't jumped him outside, and I haven't jumped him at all on my own since my last lesson.
And so Shannon sent us right to the far end (the scary end), put us on a trot, then canter circle, and right over this 2' vertical. And she said (second breakthrough): pretend like this is the show and this is your only chance.
So even though he wanted to look and be a bit silly, I rode. every. step. And while it made me tired, he responded beautifully. On the second or third lap, the poodle came out, and when Willig didn't react, he started barking! And nothing from Willig! Just an ear flick. Because I was riding every single one of those steps.
He had a period where he tensed up his shoulders and got ready to bolt (when we changed directions) but I could feel it coming (because I was paying such careful attention) and so we skipped the jump for a few laps, but then he was like "oh, ok, we're not doing that today?"
So instead of dawdling around out there for 40 minutes, trying to work up the nerve to head towards that end, Shannon just sent us straight out there and created yet another breakthrough moment.
Now, Willig is Willig, but this was huge for me and how I'm thinking about things. I'm still very much a passenger-rider, and I need to become the driver-rider.
But wow. I can do it! I just need to keep changing those old bad habits.