Let Duke do his job

We had an excellent dressage lesson today, which was a surprise since poor Duke only got ridden one other day this week.  He had Monday off for the Neiders hearing, Tuesday off (surprisingly) because I was so wiped out from the hearing, Wednesday off for the farrier (which I probably should have ridden him), Thursday I rode him and he was stiff and downhill, and Friday he had off because the black bear hearing was surprisingly stressful.
John suggested that this was one of Duke's good qualities - he knew I needed him to step up, so he did.  He thinks Duke might be more likely to offer things than to be forced into them, and that when I've had a rough week and I'm fried (like at my jump lesson with Christa), just let Duke do his job.
Duke was a little stiff to start, so John had us bend a little, and then do turns on the haunches.  From there, Duke softened right up.  A turn on the haunch was to bend him to the inside, then use the outside rein to start to turn his shoulders around (keeping the bend to the inside), then when he stepped over let him go forward, then change the bend.
John also had us do this movement at the trot, where I would come in on the circle and once he started crossing over, leg yield back out to the full size circle.
My dressage test from Aspen had a comment about not helping the horse enough, and John said he thought that it was probably the last 10% - that Duke is going around and he feels nice to me, but then John says "now do x" and then all of a sudden he feels amazing.  John said he thinks probably the judge was looking for that last little bit.
So we did some leg yields, the bending to soften him, some nice transitions up and down, and a lot of bending not just through his neck but his body.  Duke felt really great, and just showing up at John's after not being there for two weeks was like a load lifted off of me.  We didn't ride with draw reins.
John also answered my huge list of questions:
Devoucoux is his second choice saddle, but he thinks I'm cutting my nose off to spite my face (I am, I know it, and I'm doing it anyway)
Show jumping he thinks when Duke is that flat in the warm up, we need to let him be calm, rev him up, then calm him down again.  he thinks that it kind of surprised him, what was going on in the sj, compared to the warm up arena.  He also said we could do more tight turns to the jumps, to kind of get him to perk up.
For cross country, he said he teaches all his students how to turn off the outside rein, so we didn't have problems with the slippery grass, but people who tried to turn off the inside rein slid out and then got scared.
For forging, he said that one of Duke's qualities is he steps underneath himself instead of having his legs 50' behind him.  He wasn't bothered by it.
Tilting forward in the dressage photos he said is probably my saddle launching me forward.
For body pumping at xc, he'd have to see it, but he said that if I was sending him forward, then it was normal to be moving a little bit more with him.
He said he can help at dressage warm up because I'm less likely to push Duke into the bigger canter unless John is there to see it and help me with, what I'll call, the boundaries.  I get timid.
For our last jump lesson with Christa, he said that everyone slows down with the half halt.  And that's ok, so long as it is a slowing down where he's rebalancing onto his back legs, and not a slow down where he's tilting forward onto his forehand.  He said it is trying to remember to keep some leg on when you are asking for the half halt.
And for turning from the leg instead of the hand, he said it is leg and hand.  But that we tend to just use our inside hand, and we need to use the outside leg and hand to help round around the turn.
I think that was most of it.  It's been a long couple weeks, and from my calendar, I don't even seem to have hit the half way mark.  I go full speed all the way to Rebecca, and then get to breathe a little bit while I am there.