Validating of some Physical requirements

FatherOfFive

10-Year Member
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Jun 27, 2006
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As I understand it, The Naval Academy has a swimming and wrestling requirement and that if you can demonstrate proficiency at them you can validate these and thus gain a couple of extra hours per week in your schedule.

Q: Does anyone know if a similar opportunity exists at the Air Force Academy? If so what are they and how much time would be gained by validating them?

Thanks

-FoF
 
Spouse is a grad and taught there. Never heard of such a thing.

If you are a varsity athlete, you don't have to box or wrestle as a freshman. I can imagine giving up senior year golf, the course there is beautiful.
 
I have never heard about anything like that here...although, I don't hear about a lot that goes on here.

IC athletes sacrifice a lot of time to be on the team.
 
FatherOfFive said:
As I understand it, The Naval Academy has a swimming and wrestling requirement and that if you can demonstrate proficiency at them you can validate these and thus gain a couple of extra hours per week in your schedule.

Uh...... Not when I was there. :confused:
 
Zaphod said:
Uh...... Not when I was there. :confused:

No, really!

My son and I interviewed a Mid who had just completed his Plebe year. He said that there are certain physical requirements that consumed about 2 hours each per week. By validating them you could free up this precious time.

He told me he was able to validate Swimming, but had to take Wrestling and I believe he said the 3rd was boxing.

I'll see if I can get more details from him.
 
No swimming, no wrestling, no boxing. What is the place coming to? Pretty soon, it will be just like any other college. Of course, I spent 4 years on the swimming sub squad so validation was the furtherest thought from my mind. I was 6' 5". 210 lb and rowed crew. Great lower body strength but nothing topside. In wrestling and boxing I was always paired with a football player (they didn't validate). Many of my "fondest" memories are from the boxing and wrestling lofts. Unless you had it first period, the headgear was always wet and sweatly from the previous class. Always a great start. FOF, I hope you're wrong. Of course, swimming and wrestling are more common now as high school sports than they were 40 years ago so it kinda makes sense not to have those go through the classes. However, the jump off the 10m platform,the underwater swim techniques, and swimming strokes designed for survival aren't mastered on most high school swim teams. For those anticipating becoming airdales, there is the ever-present water survival training where the Navy does everything they can, on a continuing basis, to try to drown you, so being comfortable in the water is very important. In my opinion, one cannot spend enough time in the water. Of course, that is the perspective of a permanent subsquadder.
 
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At the Academy there are a few PE classes that you can validate. Swimming and water haze are one of the ones that you can. On your first class they have you take a swim test, normally timed and I am not sure on the distance. If you complete it under the required time, you validate and get an A for the course. Another one that I know of is for females, who can validate self defense if they have earned a black belt and are participating in a club karate program. Those are the only ones I know of, but there could be more.
 
USAFA09 said:
At the Academy there are a few PE classes that you can validate. Swimming and water haze are one of the ones that you can.

Now we are getting somewhere! This is what the Mid must have been referring to - P.E. class. My son is writing an essay for the AFA. This information will be very useful in his essay. By the way, this doesn't mean he intends to validate anything.

Q: Can you verify that by validating these P.E. subjects you can free up time in your schedule? If so how much time per week?

Q: Can you find out what other P.E. subjects you can validate?

Q: "Swimming and water haze" is this one subject or two?

Thanks a bunch!

-FoF
 
Yes if you validate them, then you get those periods free and can do what you would like to with the time. It would just be the periods that you would have to go to gym that you could have off normally 2 peroids in a row. Gym is only 8 lessons long, so for most of the semester you have these periods off anyway. I can look into other corses that you can validate, I am only sure of those three right now. Self defense (females), swimming, and water haze. Swimming and water haze are two different subjects normally you take one for 8 lessons then the next after those 8 are over and then take the last one for 8 lessons, if that makes any sense.
 
USAFA09 said:
Swimming and water haze are two different subjects normally you take one for 8 lessons then the next after those 8 are over and then take the last one for 8 lessons, if that makes any sense.

Ok, I think I get it. Gym only meets for 8 sessions a semester. Each session consists of two periods and they cover the subject for that semester. At the end of the 8 sessions/lessons, you don't have Gym until the next semester. Validating a session would free up the 2 periods in your schedule for each week that you would normally have Gym.

Q: Do I have this right? :rolleyes:

-FoF
 
FoF,
Quote:
"My son is writing an essay for the AFA. This information will be very useful in his essay."
Be careful, he's on thin ice. I can't think of any way this can be used as a positive contribution to an essay.
 
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USNA69 said:
Of course, I spent 4 years on the swimming sub squad so validation was the furtherest thought from my mind.

:yllol:

I was on near-permanent sub-squad for the run or situps. :cool:

Swimming however, I always got an A in. :thumb:
 
USNA69 said:
FoF,
Quote:
"My son is writing an essay for the AFA. This information will be very useful in his essay."
Be careful, he's on thin ice. I can't think of any way this can be used as a positive contribution to an essay.

I'd have to agree. I wouldn't bet on what you're reading here unless I could confirm it somewhere else.
 
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