INPUT ARTICLE: Article: If you want to show your horse in a dressage competition, you should consider getting professional training beforehand. A professional outside point of view will be able to recognize any mistakes you might be overlooking in form, technique, or commands.  You should be able to contact a local equestrian club (or even your horse veterinarian or other dressage enthusiasts) for recommendations about who to ask for private dressage lessons for you and your horse. Try attending a clinic for beginners with your horse if you can’t afford a professional trainer. You can also buy instructional DVDs or books illustrating what to do. Memorize and practice the USDF Training Level tests. Ride them for a certified instructor and ask them for some tips on what you should work on. When you take the tests, a judge will give you a scorecard with information on how well you and your horse performed during the test.  Each test is conducted on an individual basis – with one horse (and rider) performing on their own for each level of the test. The USDF tests your skills in some of the following areas: tracking right or left, free walking, halting and saluting, changing reins, and circling right or left. Here is the fun part. Research any schooling shows in your area and enter your horse in them. After you ride your test for the judge, you will receive a score sheet with an assessment of what you did well and what you scored poorly on. Try to take all criticism well, as the judge did take the time to write up the scoresheet for you.  Remember that your first show is really just a test run since you’ve never done it before. Give yourself permission to do poorly because you are learning how the system works and what is expected in these kinds of competitions. There are many national and international dressage competitions around the world including the US Dressage Finals, the Great American Insurance Group/USDF Regional Championships, and the North American Juniors and Young Riders’ Championships.

SUMMARY: Get professional dressage instruction. Practice the USDF tests. Show your horse.


INPUT ARTICLE: Article: Pokopom supports only controller input and can utilize features like rumble and pressure sensitive input. Pokopom will also support guitar-style controllers like those used with the Guitar Hero games. Go to http://pcsx2.net/download.html and choose the installer for your platform. Upon launching the program you will be greeted with the first time setup. By default your system language is chosen. Press “Next” to proceed to the plugin configuration. PAD is the second menu in the list of plugins. This is located to the right of the PAD menu and will open a list of options for setting up the Pokopom plugin. Select a radio from the “Xinput Controller” section in the upper left. This value only needs to be changed if you are connecting multiple gamepads to your computer.  Xinput allows automatic emulation of a PS2 controller using a and Xbox360 pad. The buttons will be automatically mapped to the corresponding locations on a PS2 controller.  Xinput is bundled with Pokopom and does not need to be downloaded separately. For minor remapping, you can select the “Swap [X] [O] buttons in the “Misc” category to switch those two functions. From the “Left Stick” and “Right Stick” sections in the lower right, you can change the left/right and x/y axes associated with each direction of both analog sticks. Typically axis settings can be adjusted in game, so only make a change here if you want that setting consistent through all games and menu functions. Move the “Deadzone” slider to the right to increase the amount of space that will ignore input when moving the analog stick. To the left will decrease.  You can also use the “Anti-Deadzone” slider to have the emulator software try to override deadzones already implemented into games. Each analog stick utilizes separate Deadzone sliders. Move the rumble slider near the top of the window to the left to decrease intensity, and to the right to increase it.  You must be using a rumble-supported gamepad in order to utilize this feature. This feature will not force rumble in games that do not support it. This will reset all of your changes back to the original settings. Since bindings cannot be adjusted, these do not need to be changed again. Select “Controller 2” in the upper left and repeat the previous steps as necessary in order to play multiplayer games. This will save your controller configurations and close the window.

SUMMARY: Connect your input device to your computer. Download and open PCSX2. Select and Language. Select “Pokopom” from the “PAD” dropdown. Click “Configure”. Select the “Xinput controller”. Adjust the analog stick directions. Adjust the “Deadzone”. Adjust the rumble settings. Click “Restore Defaults” (optional). Configure a second input device (optional). Click “OK”.


INPUT ARTICLE: Article: Get your creative juices flowing by doing a freewrite that focuses on the topic or subject of your paper. You may use the essay question assigned to you by your teacher as the prompt for the freewrite. Or, you may focus on describing the subject or topic in the freewrite from the perspective of your main character if you are writing a creative piece. Freewrites are a great way to get your brain warmed up and ready to write.  Freewrites often work best if you give yourself a time limit, such as five minutes or ten minutes. You should then try to not take your pen off the page as you write so you are forced to keep writing about the subject or topic for the set period of time. For example, if you were writing an essay about the death penalty, you may use the prompt: “What are the possible issues or problems with the death penalty?” and write about it freely for ten minutes. Often, freewrites are also a good way to generate content that you can use later in your rough draft. You may surprised at what you realize as you write freely about the topic. A cluster map is another good brainstorming tactic as it allows you to identity keywords and phrases that you can then use in your rough draft. It can also help you to determine where you stand on a certain subject or topic, especially if you are writing a persuasive essay or paper.  To use the clustering method, you will place a word that describes your topic or subject in the center of your paper. You will then write keywords and thoughts around the center word. Circle the center word and draw lines away from the center to other keywords and ideas. Then, circle each word as you group them around the central word. For example, if you were trying to write a short story around a theme like “anger”, you will write “anger” in the middle of the page. You may then write keywords around “anger”, like “volcano”, “heat”, “my mother”, and “rage”. If you are writing an academic essay, you will likely need to do some form of research by reading scholarly texts on the topic or subject. Reading these texts could also help you get inspired and prepared for your rough draft. You may also make notes as you read these texts, creating key points and themes that you may explore later in your rough draft.  If you are writing a creative piece, you may look for texts written about a certain idea or theme that you want to explore in your own writing. You could look up texts by subject matter and read through several texts to get ideas for your story. You might have favorite writers that you return to often for inspiration or search for new writers who are doing interesting things with the topic. You could then borrow elements of the writer’s approach and use it in your own rough draft. You can find additional resources and texts online and at your local library. Speak to the reference librarian at your local library for more information on resources and texts.

SUMMARY:
Do a freewrite about the topic or subject. Make a cluster map about the topic or subject. Read writing about the topic or subject.