"Feel" and jump lesson

I had an epiphany about "feel".  It's taken a while for me to learn it, but when I talk about how Duke is "talking" to me, it's feel.  And that's thanks to re-reading the books, understanding that feeling what the horse is doing and responding to it is "feel."  I get now how some people have that instinctually, and how I've had to learn it by repetition and John's instruction, but at least I can do it a little bit.  It's been - probably - mostly riding Duke after John's ridden him that's taught it to me.  Very interesting.

Brief jump lesson summary - John said we still have a bad drift, but our distance is ok, that what I need to do is keep Duke between my legs (perpendicular to the fence) so that he doesn't twist in the air over the fence.  He thinks it might be the twist that's catching the rails at the show.  The other part is setting him up ahead of time - doing that bit of counter bend around the corner and then not rushing towards the fence.
There was, of course, much more to the lesson, which was great - with Duke making great turns and jumping huge fences and coming back to me well, and it was a great confidence booster.
The one thing I'm nervous about now is down banks into the water, but I'll ask John when we walk xc if I should just school it to be safe.
Duke's a great horse, John's a great instructor, and I'm pretty lucky to have a life where I can work with both of them.