Letting go and Abdicating control

I had two lessons today - a dressage lesson on Falada, the Grand Prix mare, and then a jumping lesson on Willig, the hootchie scootchie gelding we know all too well. Both were exhausting.
Dressage first.
Falada is the big, lazy southern belle sipping on a mint julep on a porch swing in the deep south. I thought I had gotten the hang of riding her, but it was actually just that she had fooled me into thinking I was riding, when really I was just lazily swinging.
Mike got on and showed me, talked me through everything he was doing, and let me feel (holding onto his fist) the amount of pressure he was using on the reins (not much, it turns out).
His first point was that I ride them fast, long, and strung out - and for a Grand Prix mare like Falada, she doesn't need to ride anything like that (Prince is just growing out of it, while baby Contempo is fine to be ridden like that). So he showed me the steps and how he gets her connected and on the bit, and then how he gets the impulsion and power coming from behind.
We also did a bit of piaffe and passage with the whip and bamboo pole, but all I learned is that this is yet another thing I'm not naturally coordinated at.
It was amazing to watch, and all made sense while he said it, but I couldn't repeat it later on the rest of the horses I rode. However, I did get to ride Falada right after, and we did some canter/walk transitions and this helluva huge extended trot that was just POWER exemplified. Really cool. Her butt sat down and her front legs lifted up and she just ROCKETED from the hind legs, but it was smooth as silk to sit on.
So it is kind of a wiggly leg (electrified leg - on and then OFF), then the toothpaste hands (also wiggly). When the horse gives, LET GO to reward them, then ask again. Some efforts are C, some are A+, but you have to reward so they understand what you're asking for.
This is the hard part - I can't let go. With my hands or with my leg. I just clench on tighter and tighter - like a barnacle stuck up there on their back.
So it was amazing to feel what it felt like when it was right, and for Mike to give me the step-by-step description, but I feel like this is my next big hurdle and I am really, really slowly catching on - even calling it "catching on" is being generous to myself.

Then Mike gave me a few comments on Willig's Donida dressage scores:
- Judge has no idea what happened at beginning of season
- Until I can ride test 2-1, I really shouldn't be showing test 1-3 (that's my words) - you should be riding at home a level above what you're showing
- a 60% is average. A 65-70% means you should be the next level up.
- a six has a big wide margin, an 8 is pretty much perfect and there's not a lot of 8-/ 8+ room
- I probably rode Willig bent the wrong way on the leg yield ("counterbent" would have been a more helpful comment than "ridden wrong")
- And I probably rode Willig the way I did pre-Falada lesson on the lengthened trot which is why she called it "strung out" (or whatever)

I've also been studying the 2-1 movements, and there's a lot I need to look up - like what is a simple lead change, and I'm still struggling with the difference between shoulder-in, haunches-in (travers), and renvers. And what's the difference between a lengthened trot and an extended trot?

Jump lesson:
I rode Willig last weekend over a course outside (well, we built up to it) but trot only because of the whole freight train/gimpy shoulder action at the canter. He did a good job, and I attributed it to my incredible skills "letting go" like both Mike and Shannon told me.
Mike had us do a similar warm up (should look like dressage) and then do a cross rail. His approach to Willig speeding up once he locked onto the fence was to (from the trot) ask him to halt, and then trot again, along the fence line, then halt on the far end, turn around, and do the fence again.
At canter, it was to turn off, at the latest, two strides out (one stride out is too late).
So we worked a few different fences at trot and canter - Willig was all ho-hum, of course - but doing just a teeny bit of the rushing before and after the fence. So Mike had us work on making the canter as short as possible. And if Willig sped up, turn off or halt. And if he rushed afterwards, use a pulley rein.
Now, we've used pulley reins before, but I had a really hard time with it today. One was my left shoulder was killing me (Falada likes to lean on it, and I'm prone to leaning back instead of tug and release) and it seemed like every time I needed it, it was my lame left arm. The other was I'm just mad, and I just pull and pull and pull and pull instead of pull and release. The third is that I can't feel the difference. Mike says he's listening and stopping the charging, but it doesn't feel any different to me until many, many, many strides later (and by then, I've just been ripping on his face unnecessarily). And fourth, I don't trust Willig. I don't like "release" because of how he used to bolt (and then once bolting, buck) and so I cling and cling to him.
And clinging, oddly, abdicates control. When I tug and release, I have better control than when I hang on him.
Mike thought Willig seemed happy and like he was enjoying himself, but that he was also clearly the one in charge and that no wonder I have trouble on the show jumping course. He also said work on this stuff on baby poles - a fight like that over a 3' fence is going to end in a crash.
So my homework was to set out about 12 poles around the arena and control what happens to them, over them, after them. And to use the pulley (sometimes I might need it four times) but over time, as he switches back to acknowledging me as the boss, I'll need it less and less and then only one time, if at all.