Andrea and Pro - Lesson writeup!

I was bad and didn't do this immediately, so we'll see if I remember all the details. Hopefully Kate can fill me in on whatever ones I'm missing. Pro didn't start off bad (well, it didn't feel like he was being bad) but Gayle seemed to immediately tune into Pro's hidden attitude. She had me work on using my hands properly. I knew that wiggling the bit with my wrists was bad, but I never really had anyone explain why other than "it's cheating." Gayle is great about explaining why stuff works/doesn't work, that's one of the things I really like about her. She explained that when you use your hands to work the bit and you let go, you basically drop the bit in their mouth so it hits the bars of their jaw. Doesn't take much imagination to figure out that it's not comfortable for them. So she said that Pro didn't want to go forward into contact and round up because he didn't trust my inside rein. I didn't really blame him after her explanation. She said I should imagine that my reins were connected to my elbow instead of my hands. That didn't really make sense to me though, in terms of how to adjust what I was doing. She tried to show me by holding my hands and being my hands for me, but I just wasn't getting it. Finally the light bulb came on though and I realized that instead of moving my elbow forward back I needed to actually move my entire shoulder. I'm not sure that really makes sense reading it, so lemme see if I can explain.

First I had to connect him with my outside rein, so there I was just looking for an elastic connection. He didn't really seem to have issues with accepting that, probably because Kate's worked on it a lot with him. Then if I didn't have a good tempo I would force myself to put my inside hand forward, box him with the inside leg, and then keep my outside shoulder steady and sort of stretch my inside shoulder back. As soon as he thought about giving with his head/neck I'd relax and immediately stretch back again until I had him actual straight instead of counter-bent. Combine that with taking my legs off from the hip and not wrapping my legs around him he poofed up and felt great. I cheated and did a couple circles at the trot just to figure out what to do at the trot, and we called it a day. My 12yo self never would have thought I could get my money's worth out of an entire lesson spent on a 10m circle at the walk, but I did.
***EDIT BY KATE - I added the pictures!!!! :) I made them small since there were so many to include...Andrea, feel free to add explanations and/or rearrange the photos. :)