Rules to play Bull Fighting

1. Bull fighting in Spain is an event in which 3 toreros have to fight 2 bulls each and, ultimately, kill them. A bullfight is always held in a roundshape arena or venue called plaza de toros. The toreros perform in order of seniority, which is set according to the date of each toreros alternativa. For obvious reasons, the senior one will participate in the first and fourth fights. Then, the second oldest matador will confront the second and fifth b .....

History

2. Bullfighting can be traced back to Crete 4,000 years ago where frescos have been found of men and women challenging the beasts. It also found a place in the Roman amphitheatres entertaining the crowds along with the bloodshed of gladiators. But it was Franceso Romero from the town of Ronda in Spain, who, in 1726, lay down the rules of the procedure including the use of estoques sword and muleta small capes. Later, Pedro Romero, the greatest matad .....

Styles

3. Originally, at least five distinct regional styles of bullfighting were practised in southwestern Europe: Andalusia, Aragon Navarre, Alentejo, Camargue, Aquitaine. Over time, these have evolved more or less into standardized national forms mentioned below. The classic style of bullfight, in which the bull is killed, is the form practiced in Spain and many Latin American countries. .....

Comic bullfighting

4. Comical spectacles based on bullfighting, called espectculos c micotaurinos or charlotadas, are still popular in Spain and Mexico. Troupes include El empastre or El bombero torero. .....

Encierros

5. An encierro or running of the bulls is an activity related to a bullfighting fiesta. Before the events that are held in the ring, people usually young men run in front of a small group of bulls that have been let loose, on a course of a sectionedoff subset of a towns streets. .....

Toro embolado

6. A toro embolado in Spanish, bou embolat in Catalan, roughly meaning bull with balls, is a festive activity held at night and typical of many towns in Spain mainly in the Valencian Community and Southern Catalonia. Balls of flammable material are attached to a bulls horns. The balls are lit and the bull is set free in the streets at night; participants dodge the bull when it comes close. It can be considered a variant of an encierro correbous in C .....

Portuguese

7. Most Portuguese bullfights are held in two phases: the spectacle of the cavaleiro, and the pega. In the cavaleiro, a horseman on a Portuguese Lusitano horse specially trained for the fights fights the bull from horseback. The purpose of this fight is to stab three or four bandeiras small javelins into the back of the bull. In the second stage, called the pega holding, the forcados, a group of eight men, challenge the bull directly without any pr .....

Course camarguaise

8. A more indigenous genre of bullfighting is widely common in the Provence and Languedoc areas, and is known alternately as course libre or course camarguaise. This is a bloodless spectacle for the bulls in which the objective is to snatch a rosette from the head of a young bull. The participants, or raseteurs, begin training in their early teens against young bulls from the Camargue region of Provence before graduating to regular contests held pri .....

Course landaise

9. Another type of French bullfighting is the course landaise, in which cows are used instead of bulls. This is a competition between teams named cuadrillas, which belong to certain breeding estates. A cuadrilla is made up of a teneur de corde, an entraneur, a sauteur, and six carteurs. The cows are brought to the arena in crates and then taken out in order. The teneur de corde controls the dangling rope attached to the cows horns and the entra neur .....

Animal rights

10. Bullfighting is criticized by animal rights activists, referring to it as a cruel or barbaric blood sport, in which the bull suffers severe stress and a slow, torturous death.A number of animal rights or animal welfare activist groups undertake antibullfighting actions in Spain and other countries. According to a poll conducted in Atlanta, U.S., in 2003, 46% of the Americans polled hated or strongly disliked bull fighting.In Spanish, opposition t .....

Funding

11. It has also been noted by critics that bullfighting is financed with public money.In 2007, the Spanish fighting bull breeding industry was allocated 500 million euros in grants,and in 2008 almost 600 million.Some of this money comes from European funds to livestock. Bullfighting supporters argue that almost every single cultural endeavour in Europe is partially financed by public money and few of them generate the kind of revenue and taxes in ret .....

Modern Style

12. Another current of criticism comes from aficionados themselves, who may despise modern developments such as the defiant style antics for some of El Cordobs or the lifestyle of Jesuln de Ubrique, a common subject of Spanish gossip magazines. .....

Politics

13. Late19thcentury / early20thcentury Findesicle Spanish regeneracionista intellectuals protested against what they called the policy of pan y toros bread and bulls, an analogue of Roman panem et circenses promoted by politicians to keep the populace content in its oppression. During the Franco dictatorship, bullfights were supported by the state as something genuinely Spanish, as the fiesta nacional, so that bullfights became associated with the re .....

The myth

14. It seems hard to believe that in this socalled civilised age, a most vicious and cruel spectacle of blood continues to flourish in Spain and certain other countries. Bullfighting is barbaric and should have been banned long ago, as bearbaiting was. It is difficult to understand how crowds of people will pay money and take pleasure in watching one lone creature who has never done them any harm getting hacked to death. How can anyone with an ounc .....

The prefight treatment

15. The bull is not an aggressive animal, and the reason he is angry and attempts to charge at the matador whilst in the bullring is mainly because he has been horrendously abused for the previous two days. In fact, what spectators see is not a normal, healthy bull, but a weakened, halfblinded and mentally destroyed version, whose chances of harming his tormentors is virtually nil. The bull has wet newspapers stuffed into his ears; vaseline is rubbed .....

The fight

16. Strictly speaking, a bullfight is composed of 3 separate acts, and the whole thing is supposed to last for 20 minutes, though in actual fact it varies. The opening of a bullfight begins with a tune being played on a trumpet the tune is the special, signa lure Rifle which characterises the beginning of the horror. Upon entering the ring, bulls have been known to collapse through exhaustion alter their prefight ordeal they have been dragged to th .....

The picadors

17. The sequence of events begins when the bull faces the picadors these are the men on horseback, whose purpose it is to exhaust the bull. They cut into his neck muscles with a pica. This is a weapon of about 68 inches long, and 2 inches thick. Once it is thrust into the bull it is twisted round and a large, gaping wound appears. The bull then starts bleeding to death. .....

The assistant matadors

18. After the picador has finished his sordid business, the assistant matadors then get to work with the banderillas sharp, harpoonlike barbed instruments. These are plunged into the bulls body, and he may also be taunted by capes. Up to six banderillas may be used. When the banderillas strike the bull stops in his tracks and bellows madly. .....

The kill

19. A trumpet signals the final act in fact, during the whole nightmare, strange, slow tunes are played throughout. It is, of course, during the final act that the bull is killed and hopefully goes onto a better life. The kill should last 6 minutes, and is done by the main matador. If he has any difficulties which is an extremely rare occurrence, the others immediately rush in to his aid and finish off the bull. .....

The final degradation

20. The matador is supposed to sever the artery near the heart with one thrust of the sword in fact, this never happens. It often takes 23 times before the creature is mercifully released by death. By this time, the bulls lungs and heart will be punctured and he always vomits blood. Miraculously, he sometimes attempts to rise again, and gets up on his knees, only to receive further mutilation at the hands of his tormentors. He finally gives up, goes .....

Arguments in defence of bullfighting

21. But its part of their culture is the argument commonly used to defend bullfighting, but this argument is also used to defend female circumcision genital mutilation. It could also have been used to defend witchburning, bearbaiting and a multitude of other evils, Culture is not a magic word, and simply labeling something as such doesnt make it right and above criticism. Also, the word culture suggests the enhancement and enrichment of people or a s .....

Tercio de Muerte

22. In the final stage, the tercio de muerte the third of death, the matador reenters the ring alone with a small red cape, or muleta, and a sword. It is a common misconception that the color red is supposed to anger the bull; the animals are colorblind.The cape is thought to be red to mask the bulls blood, although the color is now a matter of tradition. The matador uses his cape to attract the bull in a series of passes, which serve the dual purpos .....

Bullfighting facts

23. Bulls are in fact colourblind. The decision to use a red muleta cape is now based on the tradition of concealing the bulls blood.Initially more horses were killed in the ring than bulls. Since 1930, horses have worn protective covers to prevent the bulls disembowelling them.The faena, performed by the matador, uses the muleta to creatively allow the bull to charge and narrowly pass by the matadors body. .....

Art or Sport

24. Interestingly only detractors call bullfighting a sport. Traditionalists classify it as an art form claiming there is no competition involved. Even though a number of people have died in the bullring, the lack of competitiveness rings true when you consider that the odds are unfairly stacked against the bull. Petroleum jelly is rubbed into their eyes to create blurred vision and they are shut away in the dark so as to be dazzled by the sunlight i .....

End bullfighting

25. It is extremely outdated, barbaric and unspeakably cruel! Put the Matadors into the ring instead, see how much fun they have. They call it bull fighting. No fighting takes place; the bull does not consent to it. They drag the Bulls and smear grease in its eyes, fair fight. .....