even Matadors need tailors (find your job)

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“Courage and grace is a formidable mixture. The only place to see it is the bullring.”

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Marlene Dietrich

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Lots of discussion about Purpose in business and having a meaningful job which reminded me of a great little article, Cape Crusader, in an old New Yorker about Justo Algaba (great website) who is “one of the world’s most respected matador tailors.” This article made me think of a couple of things.

First is “that perfect job for you.” Perfection is a myth but, on occasion, someone actually does find their dream job. Algaba? This hombre loves his job and ultimately calls it “his destiny” (oh. Don’t we all wish we could say that). Being able to do your passion for work, well, I am not sure there is anything better <careerwise>.

Second. The article reminded me of the time my parents took me to a bullfight in Spain years ago.

But, first, the perfect job.

Justo Algaba’s Madrid business just produces matador outfits (called trajes de luces (“suits of light”), because of their shimmery, multicolored adornments). That’s it. He makes more than a hundred and fifty matador suits each year for matadors around the world.

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“Every suit I make is like having a child.”

Justo Algaba

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Just so you know, a good matador will order between six and ten suits a year. Anyway. As a youngster he had a different dream – to be a pilot. But when Algaba was 18 he saw a help wanted ad for a tailor’s shop, wandered in and met the famous bullfighter El Cordobés being fitted for a suit. While I would have been speechless meeting El Cordobes, Algaba remembered four years earlier he’d made a promise to himself that he’d either be a bullfighter or make clothes for them. Thus began the life of a Matador tailor – one of five matador tailors IN THE WORLD (all the tailors know each other and they all live in Madrid).

 

Interestingly, matador suit appear to be a personal thing & customized based on a combination of style, superstition and showmanship. I was surprised to find out many bullfighters let Algaba take creative license. For instance, for Paco Ojeda, a Mexican bullfighter whom Algaba considered a star he created a suit with stars and poinsettia flowers. Other matadors are picky & superstitious – especially about color.

Algaba:

“There was one bullfighter” (Jesulín de Ubrique, of Spain) “who was very lucky with the ladies. And there was another bullfighter” (Manolo Mejia, of Mexico) “who’d seen that de Ubrique had so much luck he was wondering if wearing the same kind of yellow suit would work for him as well.” So the Mexican tried a yellow suit—“and it worked.”

Okay. So the suit is sometimes less about in the bullring and more about outside the ring. But hey. I don’t begrudge these guys some fun outside the ring before taking on some half ton pissed off snorting hunk of beef with really big horns.

So this is a great story about a guy who found his dream job in a pretty cool ‘industry.’ But, I imagine, the real thought here is that he found ‘the coolness’ <or passion> in an unexpected place in an unexpected way. It is kind of a behind the scenes glamor job. It is not glamorous, in fact, I imagine it is quite tedious day to day . Yet this person has found a happy place in which to find satisfaction in his work.

The lesson? Great jobs exist outside the spotlight. In fact, many of the greatest jobs ENABLE the spotlight.

 

Secondly. The bullfight.

My memory of my bullfight day is fuzzy but distinct in some ways. If you want me to recall the particulars I cannot (beyond the fact I know I was mortified that my mother cheered for the bulls). Anyway. Think of a bullfight like a boxing match – a number of undercard matches and then the main match. I do remember distinct bits & pieces. The bullfight is a spectacle. At its worst it was a bloody mess. At its best it was stunningly scary and majestic. The pageantry remains in my mind even today. The horses, the horsemen (the picadors), the matadors sweeping in, the smallish stadium with uncomfortable seats packed to the top with shouting people and these massive bulls. It is marred by death but underlined with a heroic grace – from the matadors as well as the bulls (even the greatest bulls of all time have names). I don’t regret having had the experience. For a little boy it teetered between horrifying and delightfully, and manly, brutal.

With that said here are five bullfighters whose names you should know (I have missed some but figured if I stuck with Andalucía and southern Spain I would be able to share some of the best “matadors” of all time):

1. Antonio Ordóñez 1932-1998

 

Antonio Ordoñez was one of Spain’s most famous bullfighters. Born in Ronda in 1932, he made his first public appearance as a bullfighter in 1948 and in 1951, aged 19, he appeared in the bullring in Madrid. In the amazing career which followed, Ordoñez came face to face with over 1000 bulls.

His father was “El Niño de la Palmas”, also a well-known bullfighter. He fought in Pamplona in the 1920s where he met Ernest Hemingway, who had developed a great interest in bullfighting. Antonio knew Hemingway as a boy and called him ‘Father Ernest’.

Antonio virtually retired in 1968 and turned to bull breeding on his estate near Ronda.

Following the family tradition, his grandson Francisco Rivera Ordóñez also became a bullfighter.

2. Francisco Rivera Ordóñez 1974 to present

 

Legend has it that Francisco Rivera Ordoñez was born to fight bulls. His father was the famous bullfighter Paquirri who died bullfighting in Pozoblanco, Córdoba in 1984 when he was caught by the horns of a bull named “Avispado” (from the Spanish for wasp, “avispa”). Antonio Ordoñez, his grandfather, was one of Spain’s most famous bullfighters. At the age of 17 he was out in the bullring for his inaugural fight at the Ronda Bullring, which his grandfather was running. That was the beginning of what has so far been a spectacular career. The bullfighter’s mother Carmina Ordoñez, was known as the Queen of Exclusives by the press in Spain. As daughter of a bullfighter, she surely understood better than anyone else the risks her son was taking by embarking on this career.

 

3. Manolete 1917-1947

 

Manolete was born in 1917 in Cordoba and died in the bullring at Linares in Jaen in 1947. What transpired during the years in between was the making of a myth and legend so great, the world of bullfighting in Spain will forever remember the name of Manolete.

This distinguished bullfighter was named after his father, who was also known as Manolete and was also a bullfighter. With natural grace and talent he rose to legendary status with a style of bullfighting that would serve as a model for generations to come. He was caught by the horns of a Miura bull on the 28th of August as he pe
rformed in the Linares bullring.

 

4. Pedro Romero Martínez 1754-1839

Portrait of the Matador Pedro Romero by GoyaMartínez was a legendary bullfighter from the Romero family in Ronda, Spain. His grandfather Francisco is credited with advancing the art of using the muletilla; his father and two brothers were also toreros. As a child he participated in two bullfights in Algeciras then fought in Seville in 1772 and in Madrid in 1775. In 1776 he killed 285 bulls, fully establishing his reputation. He allegedly slew over 6000 bulls before retiring in 1799, all without a scar on his body. He was equally famous for being the first matador to view his job as an art form rather than just a display of courage. After retiring, Romero was appointed the head of a bullfighting school in Seville. At the age of eighty, a crowd looked on as he allegedly killed numerous bulls in a bullring in Madrid, probably the last bullfight he ever participated in. (All these guys were nuts)

Ernest Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises often alludes to the legend of Pedro Romero. He is referred to as the “perfect” male, or a representation thereof. Romero was immortalized in Goya’s famous portrait.

Lastly. Probably the most famous bullfighter of all time. El Cordobes.

 

5. Manuel Benítez Pérez

 

Born in 1936 in Palma del Río near Córdoba and is known as El Cordobés (“The Cordobese” – “The Cordovan”).

This famous matador of the 1960s brought to the bullring an unorthodox acrobatic and theatrical style. (In other words he was a nut. Ok. a brave nut.)

His signature move was one that I can only envision was spectacular live. Breathtaking and scary and beautiful all at the same time. This original and dangerous technique which El Cordobés frequently demonstrated was first shown to the world at Anjucar. In a massive departure from the traditional formality of bullfighting he would wave his Banderillero (called a Columpio formally) away, then broke his banderillas down to pencil length, stand with his back to the bull as it charged, then moved his right leg out moments before the bull was upon him causing the bull to swerve which allowed him a moment to slam in the bandrillas from just behind the left horn. (Ok. See? That is nuts. A bull typically weighed over a half a ton and was typically slightly pissed at having been stabbed with a variety of sharp objects by this time.)

 

This maneuver was subsequently repeated in bullfights across Spain sometimes with even more dangerous variations such as standing with his back to the barerra and driving in the banderillas after the horns passed either side of him.

El Cordobes was born in poverty brought up in an orphanage in a village near Córdoba. He was a construction worker and petty criminal who dreamed of being a bullfighter (and achieved that dream by jumping into the ring and showing he could fight a bull). This was extremely rare to become a toreador with that background.

A highly memorable point in his career was his first appearance at Las Ventas, the bullring of Madrid, on May 20, 1964. An event watched on television by many Spaniards which ended tragically with the near-fatal goring of El Cordobés on the horns of the bull “Impulsivo”. Oh. You want to understand what a matador is like? Well, just 22 later El Cordobés fought again <again, this guy ,,, well … these guys … was nuts.>

There you go.

Now you know about a matador’s tailor and some of the most famous matadors of all time.

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Written by Bruce