Hoo-ya! First grid lesson of the winter

I got nervous about today's jump lesson, but couldn't figure out why.  It isn't like I haven't jumped Duke before or that he's ever been difficult.
We started the lesson with some flat work, which was super helpful, because Duke was wound pretty tight yesterday and spent most of the ride tense and holding his neck all rigid (I have now ordered some ear plugs to go with the ear nets because I am not interested in wasting all winter with him being tense instead of working on what we learned in our last lesson).  So John had us work on getting him to stretch through his neck and to give me some bend.  He said that when Duke's had a tense ride the day before, I need to get that movement in his neck, and I need to work on the stretch since Duke isn't a horse who is naturally inclined to drop his head down.  He said to be patient, that Duke is not going to give much, so I'm going to have to wait for it.
And I think that was the key - wait for it.  I try to get Duke to put his neck down by dropping the reins, which accomplishes nothing, other than giving him a loose rein that has no connection in it.  We will have to work on this more in a future lesson, but it was a bit of pushing forward and down, with inside leg to bend him and push him a bit out in the ribs.  And it went sooooooo slowly before he would take it and chew just a little bit.
John had me do a lot with my inside hand, like pushing it forward and then bending him again, and then softening a bit, then pushing forward again.  My outside hand didn't do too much, except for a half halt every once in a while.
With John's coaching, it still took probably 15 minutes before Duke started to give, so that will help me keep in mind just how patient I need to be, because it will undoubtedly go slower when it's just me, and when he's already tense (he's not tense at lessons with John).
From there, we started work over the grid, which started with a ground pole, cross rail, ground pole, ground pole, but the other poles on the sides.  Duke didn't hesitate, but flicked his ears around like radars, checking out all the poles.
We ended trotting in over the ground pole, cross rail, ground pole, vertical, oxer.  The vertical had a pole on the right on the far side and the oxer had a pole on the left on the far side, to create a tunnel for Duke to go through.
The spacing was ground pole - 6' - cross rail - 6' - ground pole - 6' - vertical - 15' - oxer, I think.  I stepped it out and it made sense.
And our final oxer was 3'11"!  It looked big, but I didn't really have time to think about it while we were riding, mostly because I was fuming about how my position wasn't that good, and how I was a special sort of stupid that after all these years I couldn't ride a freaking basic grid and keep my legs under me enough so that I could tell Duke which lead to land on, and so I immediately whined when we ended, and John pointed out the oxer was about the height we were doing with Charlie, where I couldn't keep my form at all, so it was actually much better than I had been doing.  And he pointed out that Duke, who doesn't appear to have done much grid work, looked at everything, tried to figure it out, and never once hesitated going through.
So, plenty to work on, but good news I think because John says grids will be good and help Duke a lot, and we've got lots of winter jumping to work on things.
One of the jumps was big enough that we were in the air for a while, and I had a second where I was so, so grateful for my life.  I get to come out and learn from John and fly.  I get to ride a horse and fly.    I miss Charlie so much, but I have only had Duke for five months and I already trust him enough to ride him over a big fence (for me, and probably for him too).  My life is pretty good.