Toreando slowly

Rafael Comino Delgado

One often hears those who regard themselves as “aficionados superbuenos” say that the peak of toreo involves toreando very slowly, the slower the better, and that there’s nothing else like it. However, I disagree with this opinion, which needs to be nuanced in several aspects.

To start with, although it will be possible to torear slowly a bull that has a slow charge, let’s see who is capable of toreando slowly a very spirited bull, one that has recently left the toril and which charges violently. When a bull, for whatever reason, charges less violently and less rapidly, then, yes, one can torear slowly. But, I insist, it’s a prerequisite that the bull charges slowly. Certainly, providing there is a capable torero, the speed with which a bull charges will reduce bit by bit across the length of the lidia as the animal loses power. As the torero is able to reduce the bull’s violence by toreando with temple, moving the cloth smoothly rather than roughly and avoid giving it sudden movements, so the bull is able to adapt itself to the speed which the torero imposes (in taurine argot, “reducirlo”), but no torero has been born who is capable of toreando slowly a fast-charging bull.

In addition, my view is that it’s wrong to say that the slower one can torear, the better. Just imagine a bull with little strength, that is tired out and walking: then, you can torear very, very slowly, but what emotion is involved? Absolutely none - nothing is transmitted - and toreo is emotion; without emotion, the Fiesta falls apart.

Another matter - and it’s important not to confuse the two - is that a torero can be capable of templando a bull that charges quickly. This is very difficult, but possible, to achieve, although it’s true that, when a bull charges slowly, it’s easier to templar. But to templar and to torear slowly are very different concepts which even aficionados (including the self-proclaimed ones) can confuse. As Santiago Martín El Viti said, “Temple is more than slowness; it’s giving the impression that you’ve slowed the bull when, in fact, it hasn’t slowed: rather, you have adapted to the animal’s rhythm.”

Those people who claim definitively that toreando slowly is the very best, and the slower the better, support their argument by claiming that the torero is more exposed because of the increase in the length of time taken for the bull to pass his belly and the femoral arteries - at any moment, the bull could hook and gore these parts of the body where so much danger lies. This is true, but the torero passes the bull so slowly once he has got to know the animal, understands its reactions, knows if it has a tendency to hook or lift its head, the extent to which it obeys toques of the cloth, keeps its head low, and whether or not it raises its head at the end of a pass. In other words, he understands the bull and its behaviours pretty well.

In my opinion, there is more danger in passing the bull at length with the hand held very low because this calls for a great effort from the bull, and, at any moment, it may opt not to make this effort and hook, goring the torero. This was why the wise genius of toreo, el maestro Paco Camino, said that toreando without cargando la suerte carried the bulls for longer and involved more risk. He was completely right.

These days - and I believe this has always been the case - there are one or more toreros in the escalafón who have been labelled as toreros who torear very slowly, and, consequently, they have managed to obtain, if not a lot, then sufficient corridas, even though they achieve faenas with a very limited number of bulls. I believe that the best torero is he who is capable of producing brilliant faenas with the greatest number of bulls, adapting himself to their characteristics, whatever they may be.

[This is a translation of an article that originally appeared in this month’s edition of Aplausos magazine. - TW]