Magic

The clouds were amazing tonight, and the angle of the fall light lit up the changing leaves on the trees.  There was even a rainbow against a black cloud for a while; it was pretty amazing.
What else was amazing was how round John got Duke, but that part was kind of just magic.  I struggled the last couple days with Duke bulging out through his outside shoulder on circles, and on crappy canter and canter transitions.
John had us ride in a circle around him, and then he gave me explicit instructions for each moment (outside leg back a bit and aid now- now- now), had me bend Duke to the inside and outside, change the size of my circles, and had me work the bend whenever Duke got stiff.
I could feel it when we made the improvement, but I could barely keep up with John giving me the aids step-by-step.  The idea of being able to feel what is going on, think how to respond, and give the correct aid(s!) is like - I don't know - light years away from me.
What was cool was that *I* can ride it, what was not cool was that a lot of what John said I feel like he's been saying for at least a year (probably 7) and even though I swear I am trying in between lessons, it must be so discouraging to just keep saying the same thing every week for years.
What was a bit of a light bulb to me, however, was his emphasis on the half halt.  He said to make Duke weight his hocks, and I did that by squeezing (and holding) with both legs and giving the half halt aid with the outside hand at the same time.  The first time took a lot of pressure; the next time, Duke was like "oh!" and just did it right away.
This would work for a while, but then he'd just quit and John would have to work us back to that point again.
I bet that Duke is going to be sore tomorrow (probably me too), so this was a great lesson in that it let me really feel just what the two of us are capable of, memorize that feel, and help me hold us to a higher standard while we work alone this summer.
John had us, after working on the circles for a while, jump a few fences, from what felt to me like crazy small circles.  When we switched to jumping, Duke wanted to pop his head up, so I had to really work to try to keep the same round feel we had on the flat.  Maybe because he was so round, if I remembered to look up and over the fence in the direction we were going, we got the correct lead about 90% of the time.
I had a rough day at work, so just getting to Caber, getting on, and then watching the sky while I warmed up was like - I don't know, like a warm blanket on a chilly day.