Board Thread:Episode Discussions/@comment-1181222-20170802095306/@comment-30323490-20170807165554

Regardless if it lasts 1 year or not, it wouldn't be the first time when a time skip happens.So they could simply show what happened in the first year of academy (episodes until know) and not show what happened in the next year. Similar to the gap between part 1 and part 2. Or similar to Team 7 genin days.They show like 2 missions (the cat one and the Zabuza one), and the next thing we know is that they are already in the chunin exams. It's not uncommon.