Who Decides?

After doing well at the Cindy Ishoy clinic and the lunge lessons, Rogo's canter got 'off' again - he started trying to wheel and run off, refuse to canter, etc. I wish I had video of it because I think part of the reason is that I'm not keeping a good, consistent contact with the correct feel. It felt right to me, but Doug was watching and said I lifted my hands and got tense as it happened. I was riding on my own (not in a lesson), so Sue and Jane helped me get it back on track.
Sue had me do repeated walk / canter / walk transitions with only a few steps of each. That way he didn't have time to get strong and try to take off, and I had to really focus on my aids. He did this really well and it immediately fixed the running off problem. We were both too busy and focused to get in trouble!
In our next lesson we worked on equitation and aids, particularly in walk / trot transitions. I was popping out of the saddle when I asked for walk from sitting trot and we practiced and practiced until I learned to sit on my tail bone and keep my knees off during the transition (I'd squeeze with them when asking for walk and push myself out of the saddle). We practiced asking for trot with just a quick 'signal', not a continuous driving aid until I got it. Rogo caught on quickly and was soon doing beautiful transitions to trot with just a quick, light feel from my legs. I also needed to remember to maintain a good outside contact throughout the down transition. By the end of that exercise it felt great and I think looked a lot better.
Then we moved on to canter. All of the work on transitions and contact had us prepared, and although the contact wasn't as steady as it could have been, he did canter nicely and obediently and the previous problems were gone.
Next we had another lesson outside - his second for this year and first with the dressage ring set up. Any guesses on what he did? Yup - he tried repeatedly (and succeeded a couple of times) to run out of the dressage ring. I'm glad we weren't at a show! Sue told me to correct him every time he even started to feel strong. This seems self evident, but I hadn't been doing that. I only corrected him if he got really strong and / or tried to take off. She pointed out that he knows his stuff (the dressage exercises we work on) and he has to learn obedience. Hmmm. Now there's an idea. I'm not being sarcastic - I really hadn't fully processed this. Yes, he does do well at his current level of training when he's behaving - I hadn't quite processed this. And yes, he very much needs to learn obedience. He's getting stronger and more confident as his training progresses and his belief that he can decide where to go needs to be curbed. It's dangerous if left unchecked. So that's a priority goal for me for the next few months - I decide where we go, always.
I stayed all night in my trailer and we had another lesson again the next day. He was sooo good! He didn't even look outside the arena for the whole lesson and he went through all of his exercises and figures with flying colors. What a good boy. We were riding with Christine and Ziggy, so maybe he took his cue from them :)