How long does it take to get..

[D+F+P=Hadouken!]

How long did it take to get your A?
How long did it take to get your B?
How long did it take to get your C?
How long did it take to get your D?
How long did it take to get your E?

Do you feel like your rating accurately reflects your talent and prowess?
Do you feel like a rating accurately reflects the talent and prowess of others?

[canthidefromme]

Depends
Depends
Depends
Depends
Depends

No
No

[corinna2u]

D+F+P=Hadouken! posted:
How long did it take to get your D?
How long did it take to get your E?

Do you feel like your rating accurately reflects your talent and prowess?
Do you feel like a rating accurately reflects the talent and prowess of others?


Our cadet male lefty foilist:
9 mnths from Beginning to E; re-earned several times.
Missed a D several times by 4 or less points...at less than 10 mnths (predicting he will have his D in January at just under 12 mnths). Since he finished ahead of over a 100 or so out of the 300 or so male foilists in DivIII at Nationals at 5 mnths, and has re-earned his E, yes, under the current system, I find that it reflects his level.

Our junior female lefty foilist: 9 mnths from Beginning, been just shy of her E several times. (She usually is two mnths behind our cadet.) Predicting that E will be earned in a Mixed Open by January, if not her D.

Accurately reflects the talent and prowess? It reflects how the fencers are placing in tournaments in a particular district. But does it reflect how a fencer will do at national or international competitions? Reserving comments, since there are many long threads on that topic...

[oiuyt]

Started fencing (epee) in 9/94. Started competing ~3/95.
Earned E in fall '95 (so roughly 1 year)
Earned D 10/96 (roughly 2 years)
Earned C 3/97 (2 1/2 years)
Started occasional competitions in foil/sabre 3/99. Earned an E in the first competition of each.
Gradually converted to increasing amounts of sabre rather than epee through the next year.
Earned sabre D 1/2000 (after 9 months of sabre, after 5ish years of fencing).
Earned sabre C 3/2000 (1 year of sabre, 5 1/2 years of fencing).
Earned foil D 3/2000 (not practicing as a foilist, 5 1/2 years of fencing).
Earned epee B 11/2000 (6 years of fencing, the first 4 1/2 of which were epee).
Earned sabre B 1/2001 (just under 2 years of sabre, just over 6 years of fencing).
Earned sabre A 7/2001 (just over 2 years of sabre, nearly 7 years of fencing).
Earned foil C 10/2002 (still not practicing foil, after 8 years of fencing).

Current ratings: F-C03, E-B03, S-A02. I'm in my 10th year of fencing. Given how I do against other similarly rated fencers and how often I have re-earned each of the above ratings, yes I feel that I am accurately rated currently. I feel that my ability in all three weapons is still improving.
For the most part I feel that most classifictions held by other fencers reflect fairly accurate ratings of their ability. There are clearly individual exceptions to that blanket opinion however.

-B :)

[scarlet_woman156k]

It all depends on a lot of factors, how much you train (and effort you put into it correcting form/technique/speed/tactics, etc., etc.), how many tournaments you attend (and their rating), etc., etc.

It took me one tournament to get an E rating when I began serious competition.
It took me about 6 months to get a D rating.
I skipped the C rating and received a B rating approx. 12 months after the D rating was received.
No A rating received to this date, and I have been competing for a total of 3 yrs, 3 months.

But I train and compete A LOT, FYI.


As for the other questions, I can only say: opinions are like @ssholes, everybody has one. Ratings are just a gadge as to the overall competitive level of that said fencer for seeding purposes to get tournaments as evenly distributed as possible. I only want an A or B rating so I can fence in Div I comps, otherwise, I could give a rat's butt about ratings.

[The0ne]

ratings don't matter, only skill does.

[corinna2u]

scarlet_woman156k, how long had you been fencing before you decided to competitively fence? What weapon do you fence?

[scarlet_woman156k]

I was a recreational fencer for two years in college back in the ('95 and '96) at a non-collegiate, no-nothing club (no coach, either). So it was fencing without a clue, literally. I only fenced in maybe 5 or 6 actual competitions during that time and majorly sucked from what I can vaguely recollect (It all seems like another lifetime).

I quit for several years primarily because I got really drunk one night, fell down some stairs and had my ankle in an aircast for a while Ah...college.

Anyway, I decided to start fencing again because I was bored out of my mind, but since I actually had the money to get good training, I went all out. I started fencing again at the beginning of the 00-01 season and got an E after two/three months of training. By the end of the season with that coach I had the D, but then decided to change coaches, which showed remarkable improvement...and still does.

I fence epee, but during my recreational time I only dabbled in epee, and was competing in foil...I know I competed in epee maybe twice or three times while in college.

Reason why I made the switch to epee: seemed more natural for me.

[Inquartata]

It took me about three years to get my E, if I remember correctly.

Then about another 10 or 12 to get my D. ( Sparsely populated Division, we had exactly two tournaments with the necessary 15 sabre fencers in all those years. )

I got my C at Nationals this year, which is a rough way to do it, but anyway that's another...6 years or so.

I think it's fairly accurate. I've felt like I was a middling to low C for years. ( Afer my last two tournaments I'm not so sure any more, though---abysmal performances, absolutely abysmal! )

Some people's ratings fit them. Some don't. One judges their ability by their rating in any more than a rough fashion at one's peril.

[KShan5[PrFC]]

I started fencing October 01. Got my D03 this June. And yes I feel this is an accurate portrayal of my fencing ability. Give it a few more months now that I have been taking fencing more seriously (i.e. fencing more than 2 times a week, and at different clubs) and I should get a C. But as of now I feel D03 is pretty much on the dot.

[Peach]

Less than a year from starting competition to get my D (never had an E) (Div II/III)
A couple of years to get my B (never had a C)
About three years to get an A.

The B was for finishing second in Division II Nationals, and I deserved that--I only lost the gold by a couple of touches to a very competent Nazlymov fencer.

The A was for finishing third in the Division IA and I trained like blazes for just that result. On that day I really deserved it. I was fencing really well, and I outfenced some really excellent fencers.

So does the A reflect my talent and prowess? At the time I earned it, it did. Does it reflect the talent and prowess of others? At the time I earned it, it did.

Of course I paid the price for training that hard and had multiple overtraining injuries that hung on. I haven't re-earned the A since then, but could I re-earn it? I think I could. Do I want to bad enough to wear out my 52-year-old body again? Oh, I guess not. The event in which I want to make the world team has no other A's in it--over-50 WS--so my seeding in the events that matter to me depend on national vets points, not on my classification. Mostly I decided to earn the A because WS wasn't in the World Veterans Championships at that point so I had to have some other goal that year. This year my job is to stay in good shape and near the top of the Over-50 WS points in case my event makes it in.

[Army Fencer]

First two years fencing epee I sat on a U, then I jumped to a C. I didn't deserve it.
Third year fencing, I earned a B. I didn't deserve it.
Fenced in college, and didn't have a whole lot of opportunities to fence at opens. I lost my B at the end of college. I deserved a B.
Went to Summer Nationals this summer with a C02, and earned a B.
Fenced a few months here in DC and earned my A. I deserved it.

It's hard because some divisions are tougher than others. While I could get an easy C in San Bernardino, I couldn't renew my B when I moved to the NYC area (I mean, I went to tournaments where there were 30 fencers and 25 of them were A's or B's. I took 5th and it did nothing for me.) DC is a tough neighborhood to get a rating too.

I think that your rating depends a lot on where you get it. If you get it in NYC, or at a NAC, at means something. If you get it from a weaker division, it doesn't mean as much.

[Tireur]

You youngsters and your ratings! When I started, mid 70s, there was nothing below "C".

Took me nearly two years to get my C in foil. Followed that with Cs in sabre and epee within two more years. I only competed off and on for a few years, finally earning a B in all three in the same year. Yeah, I deserved them.

I never saw so much store put in ratings until recently. Oh!, he's got his D. Ohmygosh!, he's a C! Wow! there's an A in the tournament, we're doomed............

Mommy and Daddy worried way too much about your self esteem and got the D and E added. Soon we'll be giving out purple, chartruese and camo belts for all finalists in the D and under competitions.

[corinna2u]

laughing...

Actually, my son started with a coach that upon proficiency, the students wore colored arm bands, kinda like belts in karate. It was a real motivator for the kids, just like in karate. The coach said it was based on the French system, whatever that means. I appreciated the arm bands, since it gave my son a goal that he could visualize and work towards.

[Tireur]

After writing that, I remembered hearing something about that.

Who is/was your son's coach?

This was years ago tho.

[corinna2u]

My son went through a YMCA Summer Program, in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, that introduced fencing;the coach was Jonathan Carr. That was in '00. We moved out of the country for a while, so we don't know if he is still doing the program. Plan to look him up in April when we are there for a wedding celebration.

[Rolls]

Well, I can vouch that Jonathan is still coaching in Mississippi. Actually, I went to a competitive clinic he gave a few weekends ago.

While, I'm not sure how his classes are going. He has been hosting numerous tournaments that have been well attended. I would say that he is hosting more tournaments now than in '00 with better attendance, but without having gone to any tournaments there in '00, it's really just a guess.

Oh, and he's still in Ocean Springs and I believe his program still runs out of the local YMCA at least that's where he gave the clinic at.

Rolls.

[Sabresque]

Fenced foil for a year with no results, switched coaches, then switched weapons.

Fenced Sabre for six months, went to JO's and earned an E

Three weeks later, fenced div. II NAC and got 3rd place, earning my B.

I've reearned my B many times, but have not yet earned my A.

[KShan5[PrFC]]

Seems like the switch was pretty positive switch.

[Inquartata]

Switching to sabre always is!