Diving deep into afición
Reading the editorial in the latest edition of Motor Sport magazine, I was struck by the following comment on Grand Prix motor racing: “It is a sport that rewards those who put the effort in to understand it.” Leaving aside the reference to ‘sport’ (although the editorial also mentions Ernest Hemingway’s claim that mountaineering, bullfighting and motor racing were the only three true ‘sports’, the rest being merely ‘games’), it’s a remark I’ve certainly found true of bullfighting - the more you put into understanding it, the more you get out of it.
I saw my first bullfight in Portugal at the age of nine. Somehow, I maintained an interest in the corrida until, in my early teens, I was able to buy the occasional copy of El Ruedo from a bookshop outside Bristol University. After a while, my parents bought me a subscription to the weekly magazine, which I maintained until just before the publication’s extinction in 1977. It meant I had to engage with the Spanish language every week (my only aid Barnaby Conrad’s Encyclopaedia of Bullfighting - Spanish was not taught in my school), and I could also develop a view on which toreros I might like by studying the magazine’s photographs. In my late teens, I journeyed to Spain specifically to view bullfights and, my enjoyment of the real thing confirmed, decided this was something in which I wanted to develop a deeper knowledge.
Joining a group of bullfight enthusiasts - in this instance, the Club Taurino of London (CTL) - was of major importance in developing my afición. Now there were people I could exchange views with, learning from their knowledge and experience, and - when I did return to Spain again from my mid-twenties - joining in activities like post-corrida discussions and visiting bull ranches.
I continued to subscribe to taurine magazines - initially Aplausos, then 6Toros6 - began reading books on the bullfight written in Spanish and regularly went to Spain or France to watch corridas. After many years, when a new book on bullfighting was published in England whose views on toreo I found myself disagreeing with, I realised I had something to say about the modern corrida and set about putting my own book together. Published as Dialogues with Death, the book was a learning exercise for me as well, necessitating still more ‘deep dives’ into Spanish literature on bullfighting as well as ongoing dialogue with my chosen ‘editor’, the very knowledgeable Scottish aficionado Jock Richardson.
That book, published by the CTL in 2006, together with the extensive collection of bullfight photos I’d taken over the years, effectively laid the ground for my authoring the commercial publication, How to Watch A Bullfight (Merlin Unwin, 2011), which seems to have become today’s essential handbook for people wanting to develop a greater understanding of what is unfolding in front of them in the bullring.
Some aficionados’ ‘deep dive’ into bullfighting involves their getting close to a particular matador, virtually becoming a member of their cuadrilla, something I have shied away from, partly due to my limited spoken Spanish and introverted nature, but also because I want to remain as objective as possible in my judgement and to avoid the day that inevitably comes when one realises the torero is no longer what he once was…
In the meantime, my own learning continues, both inside the plaza de toros - does this bull look promising or not? how is the matador coping with it? should it have been given more varas? what is being revealed in the tercio de banderillas? is the torero making the most of the animal in the faena? - and outside, in reading and discussions. In earlier times, I would come away from poor bullfights with a deep sense of disappointment, perhaps even annoyance. But nowadays, whilst I might feel slightly flat, I gain more from the experience, for there always seems to be plenty to reflect on, or to discuss if I’m in the company of other aficionados.
If I was starting out as an aficionado now, I think things would be much easier. Although weekly taurine magazines have disappeared (although I hope that Aplausos, currently monthly, will resume a weekly cycle in due course), there’s a variety of taurine websites and blogs providing news, opinion, photos and video on the bullfight every day at the click of a button. Subscription to Plaza Toros TV provides the foreign aficionado with access to live, as well as previous, corridas, plus documentaries, interviews and opinion, while several Spanish TV channels now offer free streaming to corridas and other programmes on los toros. For a ‘deep dive’ into toreo, though, a reasonable knowledge of Spanish remains essential, while dialogue with other aficionados is pretty indispensable too.