Excellent pointers that were hard to hear

As I think I already posted, the big change from this year to last year was my ability to think while I was competing.  Not only could I recognize errors as they happened (but unfortunately, not really before they happened) but I could think about what to do about them - ones I have dealt with before, I could match to whatever John or Shannon told me, but new stuff I'm not as good at figuring out what to do (like the soft footing in the dressage test).
So the good news is that not only was I identifying the right stuff, but it was consistent with me, Shannon, John, the dressage test, and the videos.
The bad news is I had to recognize it myself, hear it from Shannon, John, read it on my score sheet, and watch it on the videos.
So at today's lesson, John went through the list of ways I can improve in the future, which is terribly, terribly useful, but since I'm already feeling like I bluffed my way and didn't deserve a ribbon at all, like a total wimpy baby I started to cry.
He had some excellent suggestions which will be "easy" (I just have to battle with my constant nemesis, time) to do at home:
1.  Make a dressage arena.  Mark it.  Practice my damn lines.  Look at the judge each time I am coming up the center line so the judge is looking at me.
2.  In my dressage arena, use a cone to mark the corners.  Ride a corner different (deeper) than a 20 meter circle.  Quit cheating myself of all that space and opportunity to ride the movement correctly as soon as I hit the letter, instead of still being angling over towards it.
3.  Heels down is not coming from my heels, but from my core.  Work on not riding in a defensive crouched up fetus posture and once I overpower my quads with my core, my heels will be able to go down.  But the hideousness of my pictures is because I don't have my weight sunk in my heels, so I don't have a stable base, so my hips come forward instead of that folding in half motion that good riders do.
4.  Quit trying to do new things at the show.  Know that I practiced and trust in it.  There are three things to do jumping:  look at the center line, ride Charlie forward, and use half halts to balance him.  Once I've got him forward, it is way easier to do a half halt and then just cruise to the fence.  We did some work on this during the lesson, and when it is right, it is soooo easy and fun.
5.  Ride the short end.  From M to C, counterbend to the outside.  At C straighten for a few strides, then counterbend again to F.  Do this a few times, then counterbend to M and then just ride to C.  This will work on the deepness in the corners.
6.  Also, practice riding all my transitions 2 meters early.  That way, in a show, I'll have tons of time and can do a half halt instead of always being late in my transitions.  Think AHEAD and be proactive instead of reactive.
John had some incredibly good insights into how I tick - kind of eerily.  Like that at shows I start to choke and overthink it, and when I'm nervous, my brain tries to take over instead of my body.  And that while almost all horse people are Type A, beating myself up for every failure is his job (and Shannon's) and it just makes me feel defeated before I even start instead of helping me improve.  I can trust that he and Shannon will pick out the things I need to work on and tell me - I don't need to keep trying to do this to myself.  This was huge.  It has never occurred to me that picking on myself doesn't make me any better, but just makes me feel bad.  I just thought, "I'll never get better if I don't pick apart everything I do" (in every single aspect of my life).
He also said the big step is recognizing when something isn't working, but that I need to try to figure it out and how to correct it on my own - that too much reliance on a trainer actually will make me know less.
Then we did some nice exercises outside, and after a warm up, he had me ride a little less than 5 minutes where he called out the fence and I rode it.  I had a few really good ones, but I got frazzled as the time went on, and he used that to show how if I psych myself out, by the time I get in the ring I'm frazzled instead of pumped up.  It's the same - the first few jumps Charlie might be kind of checking it out, and then when he realizes it's just little stuff, he goes on cruise control.
The other big part was that John recognizes that Charlie's tendency is either 0 (pukey, forehand) or full on (heavy in the hands), and that it's hard to get him in the middle - forward but light.  But when he is - holy cow the fences just float under us.
Also, John was talking about why he had some of the fences set up the way he does - like practicing a bendy line before Aspen, or an oxer after a hard corner.  It is kind of amazing all the things I have never been aware of and don't know about.  That was the point where I want to just ride every day with someone who knows what they're doing and make up for all this time I've wasted puttering around.
It's good to feel those good fences, to know that when I get it all lined up, they are wonderful, and it's just going to take a lot of practice before I can consistently get all the elements lined up.  It's also good to be working on something that is definitely more nuanced than last year - it's just that I had no idea how big the damn onion is when another layer comes off.
Oh, and I almost fell off.  I jumped a vertical at an angle, and wasn't looking where I was going early enough, so I planned to go right around a fence but never told Charlie, who planned to go left.  So he shot left while I was looking right, and I went up on his neck  on the right side but scrambled back into place and kept riding.  John said that means my heels aren't totally wacko because otherwise I would have shot right off, but I was being such a piss that I was like "well, if I was any good, I wouldn't have put us in that situation to begin with."
So - a lot of progress and a lot to work on.  It was easier a few years ago when I was so ignorant I thought I was already good.