Forward progress on our connection work

John broke his arm last week, so we skipped our jumping lesson (and will skip it again next week while he's getting his cast on).  Because I couldn't ride the Friday before my lesson, I rode flat instead of jumping.  This works out well, I think, so that Duke will get at least two weeks off without jumping, but maybe not get the month off in January.
We worked on 20 meter circles, with John standing in one place on the outside, instead of in the center of the circle. Possibly, John didn't have to give me quite as many moment-by-moment instructions (although that might have been because he wasn't feeling great and not my amazing riding skills improving).
I managed to do better at connecting inside leg to outside hand, timing the counter bend when he was stiff, and making our transitions a bit more connected and less above the bit.
It was, like all of these posts, much, much harder than that, but I'm really struggling with how to put it into words instead of feelings.  I felt like this week riding him, we did a little better than we had been, but less good than the first few days after John rode him.