The golden rule; Inside leg to outside rein.

Had another lesson with Erin tonight. Deuce gets stiff on his left side. I don't do him any favors with my locked elbows and stiff hands. When our left circles start to fall apart and he locks his jaw; he leans on me, I do something super counter productive with my hands and reins, and he typically things its some weird half halt attempt and then slows or stops and I get after him to go forward and he flattens out, nose shoots into the air and he and scoots forward and argh. Then I panic and try to muscle him back into a frame again. Its a vicious cycle   
So we had a good focus and practice session on riding my inside leg to outside rein. I know this... have heard it over and over in my riding career  read it over and over, and have even accomplished it on some horses that are well schooled..... but darn it all if I can't get my legs and hands to work right on Deuce. Ergh. So we practiced and practiced (Erin reminded me lots and lots with the broken record technique) and finally I started to remember to bend his frame with my inside leg and support with my outside rein. and Whalla. Deuce came up and got super supple bendy and round. That's what we are talkn about! So after  a few more practices and feeling the right technique  we did a bit of canter work with the same principles and went on to a little bit of jumping on a circle and practicing the bending and roundness before and after the jump. Again it took some work and I have to be honest, I was getting a bit tired. But we are making head way. And I have got to hand it up do Deuce. He has such a great attitude about all of our lessons. I know he loves to jump the best but he seems he is a really good sport about working through our challenges of the on the flat work too.