Sabre to Epee

[D+F+P=Hadouken!]

I fence sabre and epee, albeit I'm a little better in epee than saber.

[Cipher]

Modern pentathalon is about swimming first, running and riding second, and then shooting and fencing. Swimming is difficult to learn at that level, but it'll also get you the stamina you need to run. Riding is difficult as well and is one of those things that you really have to be inclined for. Anyone can ride their horse, but few people can ride any horse. Shooting is actually fairly easy. It's more mental than physical. Finally, fencing is for a single touch. It's probably the least important of the events.

If you want to switch weapons, go for it, but don't think you have to drop sabre in order to do so. And don't switch because of your pentathalon plans. That is a long way off. You should be concerned more with your grades and college prospects than the sport in which you want to be competitive.

[Prince Twilight]

Hmm... riding is definitely going to be a hard one. That's okay though, I've decided that I'm going to give this a try. I'm going to find a swimming coach and a running coach... Riding is going to have to come later because there is no way I can get riding lessons now. I was under the impression that riding wasn't that important... but I guess I was wrong.

Oh well, if I fail in my plan I will always have fencing to fall back on, and these five events in the pentathlon really make up a balanced person so I think I will go for it.

Is it possible to keep up a rigorous course load in college and still train for the pentathalon events?

[Cipher]

That depends on what you consider rigorous, how dedicated you are to training and whether you plan on having a life aside from homework, sleep, and training. There usually isn't much need to do more than 16-18 hours per semester anyway unless you are going for multiple degrees.

[GGK]

Originally Posted by Cipher

There usually isn't much need to do more than 16-18 hours per semester anyway unless you are going for multiple degrees.

You have got to be kidding. (Or you're a frisbee major.) If you expect to do well in college plan on studying 2 hours out of class for every hour in class.
And yes there is still plenty of time to train and relax, if you plan/schedule.

G
ps. Learn to swim.

[epeefencer74]

Originally Posted by Prince Twilight

Would you recommend that I switch to Epee?

Is 16 years old too old to learn how to swim?

Yes switch to Epee if its your fancy. At 16 you are still young enough to learn all three weapons, which I highly recommend. I made the switch at 19 to epee, before that I had spent a year in sabre, and before that 3 years in foil.

You are never too old to learn to swim. I think it's great that you want to try the pentathlon, so go for it. Even if you don't get there, at least you'll know how to swim and that could save you one day.

The Aussies have a saying "If you never never go, you'll never never know".

I think everyone should learn how to swim, just for survival's sake.

[rcmatthews]

[quote=GGK] You have got to be kidding. (Or you're a frisbee major.) If you expect to do well in college plan on studying 2 hours out of class for every hour in class.
And yes there is still plenty of time to train and relax, if you plan/schedule.

G
QUOTE]

Perhaps you just have a difficult time with your studies. I am a political science major (although frisbee sounds like an attractive alternative). I don't mean to brag so I will simply sa that I do quite well in school and basically only study for an hour or so before a test. Paying attention in class is much more important than studying outside of it. I would probably shoot myself if I studied two hours for every hour of class time. Since I am taking 18 hours this semester that would mean that I should study for 36 hours. So i would have a total work load of 54 hours a week, much more than someone working a full time job. I have not met a single student that studies that much.

[sabreman]

Epee fencers stay home and adjust their weapons while sabre fencers are out looking for the party.

[GGK]

Originally Posted by rcmatthews

Perhaps you just have a difficult time with your studies.

I don't think so scooter.

[Inquartata]

Hmmm. Maybe it depends on the school, the program, the teachers, and the individual student....?

When I was an undergrad, I didn't study even an hour a day. For ALL my classes, combined. Didn't take notes in class, beyond an occasional scrawled diagram or graph ( it motivates your mind to remember, because you know you must either retain the information or lose it ). I also worked 48 hours a week. Still I graduated cum laude.

Most college students aren't attending Oxford in the 19th century, and most of them aren't driven foreign students, either. The standards of the modern university education have fallen off rather dramatically. It is seldom necessary to devote that much time to studying any more---professors can't very well fail most of their students and still expect to get good evaluations from administration.

I still fence at a college club, and have yet to talk to a student who put in as many hours as you say is the minimum, GGK. Not even close...

[Peach]

Depends on the student. I certainly followed the routine of barely studying in my first college which is part (though I was passing) of why I withdrew after two years. In my second college, I studied like blazes, partly because I wanted to get my money's worth. Depends on how you learn, too. Some people can absorb information sufficient to pass an exam by skimming the course readings and showing up for a few classes (that was how I got through the first couple of years) but if you want to actually learn the material I find systematic studying and class attendance work better, even for those of us who have perfected the art of BS.

Fencing for a team in college AND having a social life AND studying for classes AND holding down offices in campus organizations AND writing a senior thesis can be brutal, according to my daughter. Things have a way of piling up on you if you treat college lightly, though they pile up gradually.

[KD5MDK]

Fencing for a team in college AND having a social life AND studying for classes AND holding down offices in campus organizations AND writing a senior thesis can be brutal, according to my daughter.

This would be why I'm still working on my senior thesis, after graduation.

[rcmatthews]

Now don't get me wrong, it's not like Im going to MIT or something, but I manage to do allright without studying nearly as much as you say. I simply don't believe that it is possible to study that much and retain your sanity.

[InfernoXV]

Originally Posted by Inquartata

Hmmm. Maybe it depends on the school, the program, the teachers, and the individual student....?

When I was an undergrad, I didn't study even an hour a day. For ALL my classes, combined. Didn't take notes in class, beyond an occasional scrawled diagram or graph ( it motivates your mind to remember, because you know you must either retain the information or lose it ). I also worked 48 hours a week. Still I graduated cum laude.
---snip snip snip---
I still fence at a college club, and have yet to talk to a student who put in as many hours as you say is the minimum, GGK. Not even close...

I read Classics at King's College London for my undergraduate degree and now I'm Master's student in a closely-related discipline. My experience follows Inquartata's, but with the exception that one could either define my study patterns as non-existent or non-stop.

Let me explain.

I love my subject - so I never really had to work at it. I simply read and read and read and stuff goes in almost automatically.

Perhaps I'm just lucky...

[GGK]

My story is similar to Delia’s, scarily so. Furthermore I didn’t study as much as I suggested either. But I did spend between 30 and 40 hours a week between classes and studying. And I was in a very rigorous program, one where there were several “weed out” classes up to ~ halfway through junior year and 75-90% dropped/flunked my major.
Besides, if you go to college and your parents spend $20-40k per year than you, of course, should do as little as possible. That’s why they are spending that money...so that you can slide through with as little effort as possible. Right?
If you haven’t guessed I paid for school myself, working 20 or more hours a week, with a fulltime class load, offices in student organizations, girlfriend(s), intramural sports and (of course) fencing. For me the two big tricks were to get ahead of the work in the beginning and to treat it like a full time job. Start around the same time every morning and quit around the same time in the evening. I got jobs that I could study at (got most of it done while I was getting paid) and I was free to do other things almost every night and weekend. Since I was ahead of the work when the end of the semester came and the work piled up on everyone else it just caught up to me. So I was still able to go to the bar while everyone else was pulling an all-nighter or cramming.
Yes, college can be easy. And you can choose the way you want to approach it. Maybe like Inferno you love what you do and studying and relaxing are the same thing. Or you can kill yourself doing something that you hate – a very bad idea IMHO. Maybe you feel that you want to perfect the art of choosing the easiest path and sliding through with as little effort as possible. Me, I choose something that interested me, since I was interested the work was not arduous, it was challenging and required me to think, work and develop but I decided that was why I went to college. For you *shrug* make up your own mind, you’re an adult.

G

[broncofencer]

One should not let books and studying get in the way of your college education.

[Inquartata]

Heh.

There's a theory about college educations: that their real purpose is only to show future employers that you can handle pressure and deadlines, can stick to things, can fit yourself into schedules not of your own choosing, and so forth. If true, it scarcely matters what your individual habits are or even what you learn---an employer is going to train you to do things their way in any event, and most people do not even end up in the field of their degrees.

And if you're geting As and Bs no one is going to check back to see whether you got them by making 99s on tests as opposed to 91s, or whether you studied 40 hours a week or ten. If OTOH education is a consumption good for you---if it's a thing you want of and for itself---then you don't even need to be in college to get what you want.

Though outside my major, I took a number of ancient and medieval history classes when I ws in school. Graduation did not mark the end of my studies in those fields, and I must say that I have gotten a lot more out of that personal study than ever I did out of the formal classes...where I sometimes found myself better informed on certain specialties than the professors even then.

[Sabresque]

[quote=GGK]
And yes there is still plenty of time to train and relax, if you plan/schedule.
QUOTE]

*maniacal laughter*