Jump with Christa and Meg

Too much work for me to write re lesson.  Short version is that Duke helpfully showed John exactly what he did at show by stalling at several fences and then taking rails down right and left.  John had me kick him and whip him which made Duke pissed, and then he tore around grabbing the bit and I had to reef him around with the reins jerking on his face.
On like the 17th try, we did it sort of ok and John let us stop.
Christa had a little bit of a hard time too, which made me feel a little better; Meg did not.
I thought one of the oxers was gigantic, but it was only belly button (training level, I think).
I don't know why it was so hard; it was good to do it as a course, because putting together a course is totally different than a few jumps, fix, a few jumps, fix, but my hip hurt, I almost immediately fell off (and made sad little animal noises), I got scared, then I felt like a loser who shouldn't be riding at all, and all I could see was a future where I ruin Duke and he just starts refusing and hitting rails and running around with me having to use a pulley rein more and more and more.
Also, today majorly sucked at work.  This whole week sucked.  I was apparently only a suck plateau, not at the bottom of how bad things are going to get.
My rah-rah was the reminder "Fail.  Fail again.  Fail better."