Day 1 with Major Beale

Charlie has had a bit of a cough and was a little cranky yesterday, so I wasn't sure what to expect in today's first clinic ride with Major Beale.  Well, a sick Charlie is a perfect Charlie, as it turns out.
We did four major exercises.  First, we worked started on a 20 meter circle (at the trot), then gradually brought it down to about 12 meters, and then did haunches out on the circle, brought it back out to 20 meters, and transitioned to canter.  The amazing part about this was when I could feel Charlie's hind legs start to cross underneath - it made his shoulders lighten and poof up, and it made for a delightful transition up into canter.
Then we worked on crisp transitions with just a few steps of each in between.  This is the type of "jazzing up" that Charlie needs to get attentive and responsive to the aids, and it made a huge improvement in the other gaits.  At the walk, Charlie should feel ready to spring into canter, but this is done with some leg and whip, but NOT the seat.  It was hard to not want to grind into his back with my seat, but Major Beale pointed out if I want him to lift his back, why would he do it when I'm smashing into him?
Our third exercise was, after some shoulder in, looking at my lower leg.  Major Beale took my leg and put it in the right spot so I could feel it - because at the shoulder in, I am swinging the inside leg way, way back (knee is a pivot, spur is basically at the saddle pad), and so the little hoppity skip I felt in shoulder in was not Charlie trying to do a lead change, but Charlie saying "holy crap that tickles".
We also worked on draping my lower leg, wrapping the heel around, and keeping my toe light in the stirrup (he actually put his finger between my toe and the stirrup - I was terrified I was going to smash it), which has the secondary benefit of not letting my knee swing open.  The problem here is I get tense and then make my thighs tense, and everything goes haywire.  This will be a good thing to practice until he is back in October.
Our final exercise was shoulder in at the canter, which is crazy hard.  I have no idea why shoulder in at the trot is easier, but now that I have tried shoulder in at the canter, I now appreciate only doing a shoulder in at the trot.  Here, again, my inside leg was trying to swing way back, and I also tended to overbend his neck instead of actually doing the shoulder in.  But again, when we got it correctly, I could FEEL his shoulders lift up underneath me.
It was another really great lesson.  Because Charlie and I had our A game going, we were able to start doing some new things that I've never tried before.  As we were warming up, Major Beale said the big thing missing is putting Charlie together, and those "jazzing" exercises did that, so that's something I can definitely work more on between clinics.  The shoulder-in at the canter was a bit advanced - I'm not sure I'd want to try it and perfect doing it incorrectly before he comes back next.