Home exercises and observation of other lessons with John

Nine horribly long days after stupidly riding Charlie on a road with big rocks (= stone bruise on right front foot - 7 days of epsom soaking and bute later - 1 horse show scratched (EI) - and this year's Montana dream crushed), I rode him for the first time today in a lesson with John.  Charlie was a dreamboat.
He then, extremely patiently, waited 5 hours while I watched John give 6 more lessons.  My takeaway?  I ride about as well as a beginner novice Pony Clubber (on a good day), I will never go Intermediate (he had a 6' spread and a show jump on the top of the standards!), and a lot of the "basics" that I hear from him apply to everyone.  I was blown away by the excellent position of the Pony Clubbers - none of them jumped ahead and they had lower legs locked in place.  I was jealous.
In my lesson, we worked on a series of different shapes and transitions.  John said it was work I could do at home, so I'm not just doing the same old 15 meter circle over and over.
We did 20 meter circles, deep into the corner and across the diaganol (on a short side), then 15 meter circles.  We did 10 meter circles, and then we did 10 meter half circles back onto the rail (so a 10 meter half circle between H and A, then back to the rail at B, then the lead change at first at M, but then later at C).  We did lengthenings in between on the long side or across the diaganol, and then did a 4 loop serpentine (in the small arena!) down the center line by alternating 10 meter half circles.
Charlie was an absolute champ.  He just went to work and popped around like it was no big deal without a single step off.  I feel guilty for the time in the trailer (John said next time to check with him and put him in a stall - which is good because that means I get to keep doing this!), so hopefully tomorrow he'll still be ok and today won't have been too much work.
The other great thing about the timing for watching the lessons was that I just read two of Jane Savoie's books over the weekend (while sulking about not being at EI because of my own stupid lack of common sense), and so it was really nice to be on the ground and watching and looking for some of the things she described in the book - especially the legs going out behind, which Asia had said but I did not understand until I saw the drawing in the book.
John has pony club lessons every other week February - September (?), and right now they do four lessons, from a teeny tiny adorable (but rascal) pony to the training level kids, one of whom is working on her first prelim horse.