The benefits of riding stirrupless

Had a jumping lesson in the indoor, my horse is still off in her off-side shoulder, so I rode a fellow student's QH packer. Warm up: Lots of outside rein and leg aids to keep horse straight, esp. through withers, he tends to twist there--had to almost counter-bend to maintain straightness through corners. Alternated sit and posting trot without stirrups. The work I've been doing w/o stirrups has done wonders for loosening my leg muscles and letting me drop my leg back and down to a more correct position for leg aids.

Jumping: trotted ground poles and cavaletti to a simple gymnastic, trot poles to crossrail, gradually expanded to canter poles (for stride placement) to a vertical bounce to oxer. Worked on picking up correct canter lead out of the cavaletti bounce, making balanced turn in canter to gymnastic line.

I could tell when I left out a stride or dropped the horse in between fences; it happened when I jumped ahead with my body--a long-time bad habit. The good news is that I could call it virtually as I did it. Otherwise, My position is finally improving over fences. My trainer commented several times that I looked better than ever--high praise, coming from her.

Don't ask me how I've managed to improve my position so much over the winter, when I've only ridden a handful of times--must be latent learning. And riding stirrupless.