Maria invited us to a “Capea” in the countryside where we’d get to be matadors in a ring with baby bulls. She assured us that no bulls would be harmed at the capae. New November 2011 Intake friends: Toshiya, Jumpei, Chicaku, Satoko, Zubin, Phillip, Erick and Amanda signed up to go and at noon on Saturday we were standing outside of the bus with a larger group of Spanish people, ready to leave Madrid.
Maria gave us the agenda for the day which included ample amounts of sangria breaks to encourage people to get into the ring. She said the first round is always the most boring because people don't want to do it. I don't think that was a problem for this crowd. Amanda and I sat out the first round and took pictures of our friends. It was a riot. Before it started Chicaku ran over to me in the stands to give me her purse. As she jogged back they opened the doors and a bull came running out and running after her and she wasn’t looking behind her. Amanda pointed out that no one signed a liability waiver.
In an effort to avoid a bull Satoko actually dove behind a barrier, I had to put my camera on "sequential photo mode" because I could barely stand upright. (My apologies for the ridiculous amount of photos). The IE crowd started a “Jumpei” chant which spread to the larger group and before you knew it the entire arena was yelling “Jumpei! Jumpei! Jumpei!” The previously more defensive is your best offense, Jumpei moved to the man holding the red cape, closer to the bull, and that's all it took for Jumpei to reign matador. Several more times the crowd chanted and Jumpei obliged us with his new gift.
Amanda and I were dying in the crowd watching our friends in the ring challenging the bull, running away, getting plowed by the animal and even taking a few falls.
After lunch and some sangria, Amanda and I took our turn out there. I spent most of the time behind the barriers which provided refuge from the bulls. You’ll see in the photos, there were several spread around the ring and they were too narrow for the bulls to get in. Spoken too soon. When they brought the third bull out, there were three of us behind the barrier and one of the guys ran behind the wall after taunting the bull in the ring. The bull didn’t stop but plowed his way in. The guy jumped up onto the outer wall which left the bull plowing into my leg with his baby bull horns. I was pinned between Amanda and the bull yelling to Amanda that “it was in, it’s behind the wall!” Amanda couldn’t tell at first that it was actually in there with us but after enough yelling she popped out and I was following her out when the bull emerged from behind the wall and now went after a freed Amanda. Amanda turned into the wall and the bull pinned her against the barrier. Our instigator, the guy that was now standing on the wall and me were yelling and trying to pull Amanda over the wall with no success. Someone finally got the bulls attention across the ring and she was freed though the bull had done some damage to her knees.
Amanda and I took the opportunity to leave the ring under the protection of Erick, who said he'd tackle the animal. I wish the bull took him up on it, that would have been worth seeing. After dinner there was dancing and our IE group had a nice therapeutic pow-wow, where we took turns divulging the (complicated) matters of where we are in our lives.
To see our friend Jumpei “the matador” visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2mcBxM-nmY
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As Maria had assured us, no baby bulls were harmed that day, some of the matadors, myself included, walked away with bruises though. One gentleman got a bull head up the rear, flipped and I think was even stepped on. It could have been a bruised ego or bruised ribs, he didn't reenter the ring. We're all idiots.
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