El Recorte

On the first Sunday of Fallas, I bought a ticket to go to the Plaza de Los Toros and see a bullfight. I had been wanting to see one since I got to Spain and this was my chance. Not to say that I was super invested in watching a bull bleed to death, but it's a part of the culture and it seemed like something I should do. The plaza itself has a cool looking Colosseum, which is where the bullfights takes place.

 (not my photo)

Well I didn't see a bullfight. Unbeknownst to me, there is more than one way to entertain a crowd with a bull. My friends and I arrived at the plaza and found some seats at the top and the place was packed. We sat in the top row and the crowd was abuzz. When it started, these people on horseback ran around a bit and then the bullfighters were introduced. However, there were 20 of them which seemed odd. And they were dressed in athletic type clothes and not in Matador outfits. 

We later found out that what we attended is called El Recorte. It is a different type of bullfight where the bull doesn't die and instead these mad men just leap and dive out of the way of charging bulls. They don't have spears or anything; they just stand in front of the bull and move out of the way at the last second. It was pretty incredible. Every time a bull charged I was certain I was about to see a man die. 

Here we have some bull antagonizing.

The man came out in 5 waves with 4 of them in each wave. So there were 5 total rounds of bull dodging. And it never really got old. We even got to see a guy get mauled. Incredibly, he leaped right up and sprinted to the edge of the arena and flopped over the side. But he popped right up and I couldn't even see any blood. 

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You'll want to watch this video until the end. We kept thinking that an actual bullfight would eventually start but it never did. I'm not sad at all that I didn't see a real bullfight because I got this sweet alternative. I know some people that saw a real one and they said the experience was traumatizing. I kinda lucked out with this one.