propulsion progress

It's sometimes surprising to find you are making progress despite infrequency of lessons, but that is what I've had the good fortune of observing recently. I had a lesson this Sunday, and have been averaging one every other week. This time, my lesson was with a different instructor (someone who typically teachers more advanced students) and it was great to hear new things (and maybe the same things, from a different mouth). It also ended up being a private lesson, which was awesome in and of itself.

For example. Getting the pony to go down the long side off the rail but keeping him straight was sometimes easy, sometimes hard. I've been given the counter-intuitive instructions of tension in the outside rein plus leg, and maybe opening inside rein, but this time we actually got it to work. It was also partially because I am learning better ways to keep propulsion.

I also learned I lean forward when I use the whip or crop and am not being careful to lean back (since pony tried to spin me off otherwise)

Lastly, the instructor had me do a figure-8 with two crossrails and had me keep at it until things started clicking. This pony is famous for refusing, and my other instructor previously had me trot jumps with him, but we got the pony to get me over at a canter without hesitation. No surprise, propulsion, quiet hands and a clear, straight path got us through it. Suddenly there were no issues with pony attitude and I needed the whip less.