This is a correct exercise, but I would say much more advanced than a person who is asking basic SI questions is ready for.
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I agree with you on shoulder in and shoulder fore.
Leg yielding not so much. The inside hind leg is heading across the center of gravity and is not a collecting exercise. If you look at the direction the hind legs point in a leg yield thats clear. A large percentage of the competition shoulder ins I see are really leg yields. My scribes get tired of writing it.
Hind legs and hips should be straight ish down the track in s-i.
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Hassenpfeffer!! Hare (hair) splitting. Enough here for a big stew. 
The point is to be able to explain to a student how to use their body, smoothly to produce a proper S/I. I too use the spiral circle to introduce the S/I, but teaching the student to maintain that bend while using the inside leg almost alone to go straight up the side of the arena, takes some talking.
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I am a nobody but will throw a vote for weight on the inside for the reasons dotneko stated. I have done both and the inside weighting is better long term for the development of the rider’s seat.
I would describe the difference in leg pressure as more of a difference in the pattern of movement in my hip joint (creating space to lead the inside hind in the travers and hp vs taking space in the si).
For a beginner in the movement, try to avoid doing anything active with your reins.
For an exercise to learn how to differentiate your aids without overreliance on the hands, go from volte to si a few steps with seat aids, to either another volte or straight on a diagonal line a few steps, ly back to rail, repeat. In all, minimizing the role of your hands. Whether you choose volte or diagonal depends on what is going wrong at the time. If you have more of a ly on the wall, circle. If you have shoulders falling out, go straight. Get clear in your head about how your seat and leg position influences the bend and engagement of the inside hind.
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My take is that you do not have correct contact yet and your horse is not in the outside rein. You can not do shoulder in without the horse in the outside rein.
If the horse is not in the outside rein it means if you apply more outside rein the horse will straighten or look out.
If the horse is in the outside rein it means, if you apply more outside rein, as you are already using your inside leg to outside rein to have the horse in the outside rein, the horse will circle in.
So once you have the horse so it circles in with more outside rein you then apply more inside leg, look along the track and Bob’s your Uncle.
Now the coolest thing you have ever ridden. If you are in true shoulder in, apply more outside leg. Your horse will magically circle. No circle it was not shoulder in.
Horses learn from release of pressure. If you hold them with the inside rein and then release you are teaching them to look out or as you say they straighten.
Start in walk, you use the inside rein and you have to wait for them to release or relax in the looking in, THEN you release the rein. Then you have taught them to look in when you ask with the inside rein. Do this until it is the norm.
In dressage we do not need to hold the inside rein. To prove the rein means you can give the inside rein and the horse will stay on the circle, looking in without it.
‘The inside rein asks for bend, the outside rein controls it.’
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While i agree with most of this post, I disagree on the cool part. Increasing outside leg results in half pass. Well, and pulsing of inside leg. Degree of allow on outside rein gets you circles of various sizes. Funny how our refined aids vary.
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OP, can you keep your horse’s body going straight down the track with their neck bent slightly and head to the inside (just enough to see the curve of the inside eye)? Can you give the inside rein and maintain the neck/head position for several strides (prove you aren’t holding the horse in the bend with your rein)? Can you feel how you’re using your inside leg to keep the horse’s shoulders on the track in front of their haunches? Can you ride with this bend straight along the quarter line? Can you feel how you’re using your outside leg to keep the horse’s haunches straight and not swinging out?
Something to remember when talking to people who have advanced in their riding is that they are often unaware of the very subtle aids they’re giving. If they say they’re not using any rein aids, they’re not actively using finger movement or moving the arm, but their horse is very definitely receiving communication through the reins.
When I was coaching I learned that horses would take unconscious changes in muscle tension anywhere through the rider’s hand, arm, shoulder, upper back and neck as a rein aid. The riders who have been riding these exercises well for many years have forgotten their learning days when they did use active aids (whether rein, seat or legs) to learn how to do them. They’re unconsciously increasing tension in various muscles to guide their horses.
You will get to the point of being able to “not use” rein aids as you learn to use progressively lighter aids less frequently to maintain the bend in the shoulder in. But during your learning period you will touch the inside rein to ask for, increase and remind to maintain the bend. You will touch the outside rein to half halt, to catch the energy from the inside hind leg, and to limit forward movement of the shoulders (and turn it into diagonal movement). Remember to check that you’re not holding your horse in position.
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Three things to add to this great discussion.
- ask your instructor to take your horse in hand, and do shoulder in and down the long side, interspersed with 8 m Voltes , with you in the saddle. If your instructor cannot do this because they don’t know how. Find a new one.
You don’t get to touch the reins. Put your hands on your thighs. Close your eyes and feel the movement. Open your eyes and carefully look at the angle in your horses body Relative to the wall. When you look at these things, you must keep your seat centered, and do not allow movement of your head to slosh your seat around Close your eyes again and feel the movement. Open your eyes again, and look at the space between the outside shoulder and the wall.
Then spiral your body and look carefully over your inside shoulder with your peripheral vision and see the bend in the whole horse. Keep your seat centered.
- when you look at the whole horse over your inside shoulder, in your peripheral vision, there should be an even bend from poll to tail. If there is more bend in the neck than in the body and your instructor says that the shoulder in is correct, find a new one.
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ask your instructor to show you how to request shoulder in from the ground, in hand. Again, if they don’t know how to do this, or it seems like a big deal… Find a new instructor.
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as to the weight to the inside or wait to the outside debate, I advocate staying centered in the beginning. I find that if you talk about keeping the weight inside or outside with someone just getting started, they usually overdo it and make a big mess. If you intersperse shoulder in with 8 m walk voltes, and you get your body spiral going, and make sure that you do not slide your seat accidentally way to the outside, you will start to shape the horse, and that will defined your aids. Susanne von Dietze differentiates between center of gravity in the human and weight in the sitting bones. It is possible to have your weight aid slightly to the inside and use your center of gravity, minutely to draw the horse in the direction of travel. But this is really advanced stuff and it should not unplug your sitting balance. Hence why I start with just stay centered. if the horse is bending on the volte correctly, then you are sitting a little to the inside. And if you keep influencing that bend during the shoulder in, and the shoulder in a successful, odds are your seats in the right place for that horse.
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It really is pretty simple, yet all of the explanations above sound complicated when you read them. Here’s how I teach a rider to feel the correct aids.
Sit on your horse at the halt. Don’t expect him to do anything, this is just for your feel. Turn just your upper body to one side (whichever direction would be shoulder-in). As you do, you will feel your outside rein and leg come on as if to move the shoulders over, your weight will shift to the outside seatbone (I prefer weight to the inside, and that’s how I ride it, this is just how I teach it initially), you’ll feel your inside leg pressing at the girth lightly. Those are the aids. Now you get to do that at the walk. Just concentrate on your body and feeling what happens when you turn your shoulders to the inside.
All that aside, I am prompted to ask: if the OP is showing at 3rd level - how is it that they are unclear on the aids for SI?
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I would submit that the circle -spiral-straight line exercise can be useful to learn the positioning. But it is less helpful for developing the ability to direct the shoulders with the outside rein (so that you can then step on the gas and increase engagement of the rear end). Sliding sideways becomes falling through the outside rein or leg yield.
One modification is to make a 10 m circle, taking care not to over bend the horse in the neck. As you complete the circle at the track, transition to a walk. Then make a circle in walk. Stay on the circle and trot again and again circle. When you complete the third circle, half halt (horse may be looking for a down transition so won’t blast down the long side), let the shoulders come off the rail a step, then with the outside rein and inside leg, direct the horse down the rail. Finish the shoulder in by straightening the horse with the outside rein. Don’t just coast around a corner and let the shoulders in just kind of dissipate.
I always found it useful to emphasize the outside rein and the purposeful placement of the front end in this work. Both for me and for the horse.
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America is not Germany. 
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I found working SI in hand to be very instructive. Really everything in hand is probably more beneficial to me than to the horse, because I’m not skilled at it, but learn a lot seeing the footfalls.
Someone mentioned Ride iQ. My favorite instructor on there is Jon Holling, and he talks about SI as - you ride a volte in the corner, and as you come out of it on the long side, point your horse’s ears at A or C. Outside rein goes towards your belt buckle (not literally, keep your reins short!). Inside leg on at the girth, outside leg back but passive. It works like a charm and you can build from there.
Re: weight, I put it bot to the inside and outside. I think outside makes it easier for the horse, and then when they get stronger, you can sit a little more on the inside to make the IH work harder. If you feel like the IH is still escaping, you can then change the bend to renvers and back
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Who said it is? Did I miss something?
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SI is something that most of us can improve on, wherever we are in training. Horses are quite adept at avoiding the difficulty of the exercise, which is hard work for them when performed correctly!
And every judge seems to score it differently. “Not enough bend” from one judge = “too much bend” from the next… I feel like Goldilocks sometimes.
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My current shoulder in phrases are ‘too much angle, not enough bend’ and ‘angle varies’. Covers most of the sins.
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