The natural groove

We (humans) use many expressions in our everyday life related to rhythm:
"Miss a beat"
"Find my rhythm"
"Go at your own pace"
"Get into the groove" ;-)

In my experience, I've noticed that external events can happen either on the beat or the off-beat. Which beat you ask? Well, take a conversation between two people for example. When we speak, we do so at a certain pace, which immediately implies a beat (and associated off-beat). If I want to interrupt you while you're talking, I should choose an opportune moment where you'll be least likely to react in time to continue talking, which is on the off-beat of your speech. There are classic movie moments that illustrate this phenomenon:

"I'd like to tell you th..
-Shhh!
-But really I..
-Shhhhh!
-Plea...
-Shhhhhhhhhhh!"

In fact, the difference between good and bad performance of dialogue scenes lies in the realism (and mastery) of the rhythm of the conversation. In a lot of badly performed scenes, you find that one actor is supposed to cut into the speech of the other, but because they're not well synchronized, the first actor reaches the part where he's supposed to be interrupted and there's a lag until the second actor comes in. Of course, the scene's believability suffers.

Another example of the natural rhythm is in sports. In ping-pong, the beat is implied by the bounces of the ball on each side of the table. A good player will surprise his opponent by hitting the ball "early": early relatively to the next beat in the pace of the ball exchange. Hitting it "late" is also a way to destabilize the opponent.

The morale of this story is that if you want to one-up your opponent, be aware of the pace of your joust and use the off-beat!