Frisky George Lesson

On Thursday (I'm four days late, so I've lost most of the details) I had a lesson on frisky George. (He was still frisky Friday and then super frisky Saturday, and even Prince was frisky on Saturday.) Because George shares a lot of personality characteristics with Willig, this was a great learning lesson. We did a lot of "attention" work on a 20 meter circle to help him focus on working and not looking for something to act up about for about 15 minutes or so while I rode the frisky out of him. (Saturday I couldn't do that, but it worked on Friday and is what I've been doing with Willig instead of lunging.)
The eureka moment in this lesson was trot to canter transitions that were perfectly "smooth". No speed up, no slow down. To obtain it, I lost the "jump" up into canter with the shoulders, but it was really, really cool to be trotting and then one step later just as smooth as silk be cantering.
I also got a better feel on what my body is doing when I "suck up" the trot and canter (slows down the cadence and adds the "jump" and moment of suspension in the gaits). It's lower back and inner thigh and a bit of abs and outer thigh. But this was the first time I could kind of identify what my body was doing when I asked him to "suck up".
We also worked on teaching him piaffe and passage, Mike running alongside.
We continued to work on "powering up" the trot by collecting him (my version of collection) for a few strides, then lengthening for a few strides, then collecting, etc.
Although it's in inches rather than feet, I feel like we're still making a lot of progress. The vet visit to check on Willig is Thursday, so I have my fingers crossed he'll get back to work. I actually miss riding him.