My battle with chess started while at high school when, in our spare time between classes, we would occupy ourselves with board games such as Murabaraba, Checkers and Chess. I graduated through the first two before I started playing chess, I even had these games curved under the lid of two of my school desks and I made it a habit of playing them at every chance I got. In a similar way I started playing Taekwondo around the same time, but not at school. However, I found myself jogging around and exercising and even lifting weights at every chance I got.
So the problem came when I realised that I wasn’t graduating out of the novice level in chess and in Taekwondo. I now know what the problem was and what it still is:
In both, when you are starting out you are taught self-defence. In chess your mentor is always highlighting your vulnerability while your opponent is focused on reducing all your pieces down to your last piece. I never understood that: just like any other board game you are trying to take as many of the opponent’s pieces. I was always trying to protect my pieces. Similarly in Taekwondo I was supposed to focus my energy on the opponent’s weaknesses and vulnerabilities, this way I may have graduated beyond novice class.
I have to say that there is no better physical workout than that that you will get from practicing Taekwondo. I assume it is the same for chess in the case of a mental workout. What I want to make clear here is that both are fights unfortunately. You will realise how equally cruel they can both be but only if you see them for what they really are.