Snow! I Love You!

I honestly don't understand. It does not help my self esteem to fall off every time I ask Santana to canter when bareback.
First I just could not get a hold of his trot. It was just a pain trying to stay on. I don't know if he's just wiggly or I really can't stay on. Then I was like ya know, I want to canter. So I lined him up to the fence and the part of the paddock with the most snow. I have not had very good experiences with getting him to canter bareback.
I asked him to trot and then a canter. He was way too strung out and I still urged him into a canter. And then I don't know what happened. I think that maybe he does a little buck or something because I always end up on the ground. I landed on pillows. No seriously when I fell of I landed in a big snow drift and was kinda surprised because usually when I fall off a horse the impact hurts a little more than that. I landed on my back which hurts a tinsey little bit.
Maybe I should have Aleythia video tape it. It might give me an idea as to how to fix the problem. Or maybe I just need to get better at trotting before moving on to the canter. (sigh) If I can learn how to ride Santana bareback I'll be set to ride almost anything.

I was reading in Mugwump about how horse A gets Horse B to move (read here). A lot of the time Horse A doesn't care were Horse B goes as long as Horse B is out of Horse A's space. But when Horse A does want Horse B to go somewhere she'll bite Horse B. For example if Horse A wants horse B to go faster Horse A will get closer and bite Horse B on the rump. Slower? Horse A fades off a little bit. Left or right? Horse A will bite Horse B's neck or ribs in the desired direction. The head never comes into play. All this means is that we should be able to direct horses while riding the way another horse would. Without the help of a bridle. Mugwump explains it so much better than me so, go read it!
My thought on this was first I have experienced it before. Remember the time I got on Ana bareback and bridleless in the pasture. And remember how she hated it? I understand why. It's because she was being bossed around via me. She was being told what to do like she would be told by another horse. This was something she totally understood and responded the way she would respond to another horse. One of these days I am going to have to really experiment with that on her.
My second thought was maybe I want to train the fillies that way from the start. Their very first actual ride won't include a bridle. Just me, a saddle, and a crop. I'll probably have a halter and lead rope too just for my safety, but I won't use them. The crop is so that I can emulate a horse's bite much easier than what I could do without. I am seriously going to enjoy doing it. The fillies taught how to go without a bridle from the start. Love it!