The chess game begins in equilibrium. White gains the tempo by making the first move. Black must then respond to recover the balance. If Black can protect his pieces, while creating a greater threat to White, he steals the tempo. The aim is to force the other player to respond to your moves, rather than vice versa.
Fencers en garde are in equilibrium. The balance is broken when one attacks, creating a threat to which the other must respond. A trained defense will enable you to defend, while creating a greater threat. If the attack is weak (off-target or out-of-range), ignore it and counter-attack with a straight lunge! Or you may trade tempo back and forth with a string of parry-ripostes. Even against a strong attack, a trained defense will enable you to deflect the attack, while forcing your opponent to respond to you.
Lesson: Each move should protect, while creating a greater threat. Force the other to respond to you.
A key strategic concept of chess is to control the center. Pieces in the center threaten the greatest area and have the most mobility, while severely constraining the opponent's mobility. A strong center game will give the player a great deal of flexibility, both in creating a plan of attack, and in maintaining a stout defense.
Your shoulders and feet define the line of your attack. When your line is continuous with your opponent's line, you will be able to use your blade for defense. The closest distance to your opponent is a straight lunge along this line. To control this "center", lunge or thrust firmly along the line, using the palm-up position to attack inside the blade, and the palm-down position to attack outside the blade. This will lever your opponent's blade out of the way. Do not yield the center by reaching around your opponent's blade, or he may hit by simply extending up the center.
Your should maintain your guard position in the center of the four possible lines of attack: high-outside, high-inside, low-outside, low-inside. This allows you to quickly respond to a threat in any line. Although this leaves each line slightly open, it allows more flexibility on offense and defense.
Lesson: Control the center to allow for fast, flexible attack and defense.
In chess, the winner will be the one who is able to look further ahead. The computer, Deep Blue, was finally able to best the human chess-master, Kasparov. It accomplished this largely by a brute-force calculation of the permutation of moves.
A good fencer is always thinking ahead. Analyze your opponent's position, plan an action, anticipate their response, and plan a counter-response. Your opponent may be the best in the world at a particular move, but knowing this, play to prevent the opportunity for that move to be employed.
Lesson: Plan ahead! By maintaining Tempo, you limit the range of responses available to your opponent. This makes that response easier to predict. By controlling the Center, you maximize the range of responses available to you, while deterring attack. This makes you a greater threat, since your responses are harder to predict.
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