Matador training with real horns: Greetings from Mexico City, where bullfighting doesn’t stop despite the ban

Training in the city park

In a large urban park in Mexico City, one trainee wears a pair of real horns and moves toward a fuchsia cape. The matador sidesteps with measured movements as sunlight filters through the trees.

The practice is meant to prepare bullfighters to kill, though its motions appear graceful. Herros calls it “the ballet of death.” When told the bull’s approach seems slow, Herros says that is how bulls move. He explains that a bull comes forward slowly with its head lowered, ready to gore with its horns.

A sport beyond the capital

Herros says bullfighting is about meeting fear and death with human intelligence. He contrasts the bull’s horns with the cloth carried by the bullfighter.

Scars and danger in the ring

The bullfighters show scars from encounters that brought them close to death. Conrado says a bull tore his chest in half, but he continued fighting and cut off an ear. The calm, precise practice sits uneasily beside their accounts of injury and danger.