Bends and turns

Today in my jump lesson we did some work without stirrups (brutal is the only word I can apply to how it felt and looked), and then worked on some bendy turns on a small course. While none of these jumps were perfect, when Shannon first picked the first line (hard right, roll back left, angled vertical, hard right) I took the "stay quiet and show her she's a lunatic for asking us to do it" approach. But much to my surprise, it actually flowed pretty well. We did it a couple more times, adding in a combination after another roll back, and interestingly, the hardest part was that in the combination, just like in past lessons, I drift very, very far to the left between the first and second fence (a 3 stride line I've ridden now many times), and it took me three tries and one of the ground poles on the side of the fence before my left leg even tried to scoot Charlie right - even then, we still went over the edge of the pole. Charlie is a very sweet, honest jumper, no matter how brutal I look and feel. And I think I forgot to say from my last lesson - included in my basics is: LEGS FIRST. No more hand aids first! I practiced this on Willig yesterday and today, who is very responsive to me stopping my seat using my core, but even hopped up on sedi-vet, he managed to spook twice today.