Jumping again

So had a jumping lesson, my last lesson two weeks ago was entirely on the flat (I forgot to post about it) because I was having a lot of medical things happening at the time and didn't want to stress stuff. But now I more or less have things under control so I told Jessica we could probably go back to jumping again and she said we'd start lower than we were doing since Kieran pretty well knows his job now (go over the jump, don't go through it or around it) and focus back on me and my position instead of just "keep out of his way".

Which, apparently when I start thinking about what I'm doing instead of just doing it ....it's pretty terrible. There's one picture that I'm not going to share here but I basically am laying practically totally horizontal over Kieran, I'm not even sure how I managed to get back in the saddle afterward (go me?) but it was pretty fail.

Mostly though, it was a lot of "throwing myself forward" (because we were talking about crest releases and getting my elbows down near his neck which apparently translated in my subconscious to "throw yourself forward!") up onto his neck and standing in the stirrups. :/ Are there any sort of exercises you can do to get the muscle memory built up for "get out of the saddle but stick your butt out so you're actually balanced over the saddle"? Or is that just a "do it for a while going around and around in the ring" thing?

Also I noticed when I really think hard about pushing my heels down and getting out of the saddle...I actually push my feet outward so my calf is no longer on the horse. I sort of noticed it in the past, but it was really apparent today for some reason and I'm not entirely sure how to fix that either, except to think inward thoughts. :/

Anyway, here are some screencaps:


An example of what I'm talking about.


He gave me a nice forward trot today though. I told Jessica it was a nice hunter-y trot. Forward but not too big.


Not bad, even though we're taking off a bit long.


Hovering between ground poles!


I just think he looks good here.

Anyway, what I ended up saying about this lesson was how exceptionally agreeable he was. I mean, he usually is, but sometimes he sort of gets into a "no, I know how to do this, not listening to you" frame of mind. Today it was like, "listening to everything you say, even the wrong stuff!" which was actually nice because we were on the same wavelength but embarrassing when I came off a jump and was thinking about how we had to turn to the left but needed to go straight for a couple more strides and he started going left because that's what my body was telling him to do. Oops.

Anyway, I want to go out tomorrow and just ride around the farm and not do 'work' but get out anyway. And practice doing two point where I'm not standing in the stirrups.