rules to play bull fighting

Rules to play Bull Fighting

1. Bullfight
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 bulls. Finally, the least experienced will fight in third and sixth place. If a matador is gored or injured in any way that prevents him to continue, the senior matador must replace him and complete the fight.
2. History
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 matador of the time was appointed head of the Escuela de Tauromaquia de Sevilla, the first ever bullfighting college. It remains almost unchanged. The matadors still don their traje de luces suit of lights, while a supersticious lot still consider wearing yellow in the bull ring to be unlucky. Only in recent years have women played a part in the bullfight.
3. Styles
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.
4. Comic bullfighting
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.
5. Encierros
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.
6. Toro embolado
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 Catalan. This activity is held in a number of Spanish towns during their local festivals. In recent years, animal welfare activists have tried to stop the practice because of cruelty to the animal.
7. Portuguese
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 protection or weapon of defence. The front man provokes the bull into a charge to perform a pega de cara or pega de caras face grab. The front man secures the animals head and is quickly aided by his fellows who surround and secure the animal until he is subdued.Forcados are dressed in a traditional costume of damask or velvet, with long knitted hats as worn by the campinos bull headers from Ribatejo.
The bull is not killed in the ring and, at the end of the corrida, leading oxen are let into the arena and two campinos on foot herd the bull among them back to its pen. The bull is usually killed out of sight of the audience by a professional butcher. It can happen that some bulls, after an exceptional performance, are healed, released to pasture until their end days and used for breeding.
In the Portuguese Azores islands, there is a form of bullfighting called tourada
8. Course camarguaise
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 principally in Arles and N mes but also in other Proven?al and Languedoc towns and villages. Before the course, an abrivadoa running of the bulls in the streetstakes place, in which young men compete to outrun the charging bulls. The course itself takes place in a small often portable arena erected in a town square. For a period of about 15 20 minutes, the raseteurs compete to snatch rosettes cocarde tied between the bulls horns. They do not take the rosette with their bare hands but with a clawshaped metal instrument called a raset or crochet hook in their hands, hence their name. Afterwards, the bulls are herded back to their pen by gardians Camarguais cowboys in a bandido, amidst a great deal of ceremony. The stars of these spectacles are the bulls, who get top billing and stand to gain fame and statues in their honor, and lucrative product endorsement contracts.
9. Course landaise
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 positions the cow to face and attack the player. The carteurs will try, at the last possible moment, to dodge around the cow and the sauteur will leap over it. Each team aims to complete a set of at least one hundred dodges and eight leaps. This is the main scheme of the classic form, the course landaise formelle. However, different rules may be applied in some competitions. For example, competitions for Coupe Jeannot Lafittau are arranged with cows without ropes.

At one point, it resulted in so many fatalities that the French government tried to ban it, but had to back down in the face of local opposition. The bulls themselves are generally fairly small, much less imposing than the adult bulls employed in the corrida. Nonetheless, the bulls remain dangerous due to their mobility and vertically formed horns. Participants and spectators share the risk; it is not unknown for angry bulls to smash their way through barriers and charge the surrounding crowd of spectators. The course landaise is not seen as a dangerous sport by many, but carteur JeanPierre Rachou died in 2003 when a bulls horn tore his femoral artery.

10. Animal rights
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 to bullfighting is referred to as antitaurina.Bullfighting guide The Bulletpoint Bullfight warns that bullfighting is not for the squeamish, advising spectators to Be prepared for blood The guide details prolonged and profuse bleeding caused by horsemounted lancers; the charging by the bull of a blindfolded, armored horse who is sometimes doped up, and unaware of the proximity of the bull; the placing of barbed darts by banderilleros; followed by the matadors fatal sword thrust. The guide stresses that these procedures are a normal part of bullfighting and that death is rarely instantaneous. The guide further warns those attending bullfights to Be prepared to witness various failed attempts at killing the animal before it lies down.