Fighting the Beast

Bruce Schoenfeld wrote a little-noted book on bull fighting in the early 1990s. Bruce argues that there is a trick to killing a bull one on one.

Basically, you have to wear the bull down both physically and mentally before plunging the steel sabre between the shoulder blades with a Luke Skywalker precision. But the duality of the bull's life forces need to be kept in a balance during a successful fight. If the mental breaks down before the physical, a matador has to fight a physical torrent of insanity. If the physical breaks down too early, the consequences are equally grave. If they both break down, all bets are off.

The best matadors know that to get close enough to the bull to perform the sacrificial act, several things have to occur. The bull has to realize that the red cape is just a shiny object of distraction and the real source of His frustration is the wizard behind the curtain. This has to be magially revealed just as the bull is on the verge of physical and psychological collapse. At this point, the bull is drained. It has one shot. Get the wizard before the wizard gets you.

In a fair fight, the matador also knows that he or she has only one chance too.

In the old days, a community might depend on that one chance being successful. Today, we have guns and tranquilizers to correct our blunders. Back then a good fight was fair.