Breaking it down: Grids with Peter Atkins

First day, first lesson was with Peter on grids.  I was pleased with this lesson.  He focused alot on position and balance over the poles/jumps.  He is very discriptive and quick to correct which is great for me.  I have alot of the lesson on tape.  I will not take a bunch of time to edit the videos since I want to get this all written down as quickly as possible.  He set a bunch of poles very random and at different angles.  It really required the horses to think about every single step they were taking.  And I needed to be there to only direct him where to go then do all I can to keep him balanced and not interfere with him.  There was so much information given.  He explained how leaning forward is not only throwing my horse off balance but also adding a huge amount of impact to his joints.  He demonstrated that by saying, "Amy do you want me to make you a better rider in 5 minutes?"  Of course my answer was a quick, "YES"!  Which he followed up by saying, "get off your horse".  "HUH, ok".  He proceeded make me jump the grid on foot.  Once how I would normally jump, simple.  Followed by trying to lean way forward, not so simple.  Point taken, Peter :).
 He was a promoter of having your leg much more forward(when jumping) than I have ever thought.  He demonstrated that by attempting to grab my leg and throw me off my horse...lol...once when my leg was in my normal shoulder/hip/heal position in which he easily slide my leg up with little effort.  Then he planted my leg almost in front of the girth and tried the same thing and it was not nearly as easy to throw me off.  Again point taken.
Then his saying "Sit up, kick up, stand up" over a jump.  His method really helped me grasp how to feel balanced over a jump.   And one of my biggest goals coming into camp was to learn to be balanced jumping.  Of course old habits die hard and it will take much repeatition to really become consistent in it but I at least know now how it feels and how to get it.