Well then take your time :D I guess it also depends a lot on what you're studying, if you like it or not.
About HEMA: basically, yeah. Not just swords, you might learn spear, knife, hand to hand, anything really...following the masters directly at the source, that is manuscripts. There are many disciplines that approach this matter differently, HEMA tends to be like a sport, you study techniques, wear modern protections (so nope, no medieval armor :P), compete on tournaments (if you want to)...it's something I might write a post about later on, although I'm still quite new at this.