A couple things are better; some perpetual issues

Today was kind of a discouraging lesson because even though I'm all fired up and looking forward to this year's show season, I'm still a passive rider. It's like no matter how many tools are in my tool belt, until Shannon tells me what to do, I don't think or try to do anything myself. It's infuriating. And I'll focus on one thing, and it's just random luck when I happen to be focusing on the thing that needs to be focused on. We jumped today, and the goods part were Shannon raised the jumps a bit and it didn't faze me at all, my lower leg feels pretty good and steady underneath me, and riding up in my half seat with my hands pushed into his neck feels really comfortable now compared to how it felt all new and different last year. The bad news? I still ride passive and quiet to the fence, can't correct an error when it starts, and my right hand is still a loony tune. Shannon had me ride in the warm up with my right hand pressed into his mane, forward up his neck, and the left hand pressed down near the martingale strap. This feels crazy, but she said it's to reset the feeling where "correct" is. We had two additions that proved to be more difficult than they should have, plus two run-outs that I completely failed to correct. First, we rode a barrel on its side, with wings, so there was a tiny narrow part to jump over. We did this late last summer just fine, so I approached it focusing on the prior instruction - eyes up and forward, instead of looking down at what we were jumping. So even though I felt the run-out coming from way far away, I did NOTHING to stop it. No kicking, no growling, no smack with the whip. We just ran out, ran past it, and then finally wound down to a halt. So then the next five times, I tried to fix it, but instead of kicking and sitting up, I'd see saw with my hands, especially my right hand, making him bulge out through the left shoulder, and we'd jump it at a wonky angle. I had to clamp the right hand into his neck, and then focus on riding assertively with my legs to make it work. Then our next hard fence was a diagonal line - straight over the wall and then stay on a line so we jumped a barrel vertical at an angle. And for this one, Charlie kept charging in between the two. So for this one, I had to think "half halt" to re-balance around the corner to the fence, before the fence, as soon as we jumped, and then I'd half halt again a couple strides in, and then we could fit in the stride and jump the line, but he charged a bit after the last half halt. Shannon said this was because he was bored once he knew what the exercise was. I looked back at the lessons from a year ago to see what we were working on then, and sadly, it was my goofy right hand. I think one of the obstacles is that I do the one jump lesson a week, and don't jump in between, so I really only work on this during the lesson. Originally, what I wanted to do was have Shannon ride once a week to keep him tuned up, jump twice a week (once in a lesson), give him a day off, a day of trail riding/conditioning, and then two days of dressage.