Photo essay: Lucha Canaria
WHAT
La Lucha Canaria, Canarian Wrestling, is a traditional wrestling sport from the Canary Islands. The earliest record of its practice dates back to 1420 and it is thought that the native inhabitants of the islands, Los Guanches, brought it from North Africa. It is part of the folk of the islands and still a, nowadays, widely practiced sport with local leagues and inter-island competitions throughout the year.
La Lucha Canaria takes place in a large sand circle, called terrero, and its objective is to force the opponent, using techniques called mañas, to touch the sand with any part of their body except the feet. Two falls are required to win the round. The match ends when all the members of one team have been defeated.
MY MOTIVATIONS
I am a sports fan, an enthusiast in the most general sense. I have always enjoyed playing, watching, photographing…, all sorts of sports. All but one: the Canarian wrestling. It’s the most traditional sport of the place where I was born and yet I have always felt some kind of antipathy to anything related to it. The reason for that being that, as one of the most representative activities of the folk, it has many times been given nationalism connotations. It is often said that La Lucha Canaria is ’our sport’, (”lo nuestro”) with that ’our’ not just being a simple adjective but a strong remark against the ’other’, an opposition, and disrespect, towards anything not ’ours’.
I certainly don’t feel comfortable with those ideas, and so I have kept myself far from this and other forms of folk. Nevertheless, in the back of my mind, there was always the thought that perhaps I was not being fair to an ancient activity followed by so many people along many generations. And so I set myself the task to try and discover the Canarian Wrestling as a sport, away from any other, political, cultural or social conditioning factors.
What I found has little to do with of all those preconceived ideas, and a lot more with what makes a sport a big event: competition, rivalry, effort, team spirit, aesthetics and, above all, passion.
Juanín Márquez and Ricardo Rodriguez from CL Tegueste in their locker room, getting ready for the match against CL Victoria.
Alfonso González and audience looking at the wrest taking place on the sand.
Rucaden Gonzalez, captain of CL Tegueste, gives advice to Ricardo Gonzalez, aka Medianito IV, as he steps on the sand for a fight.
Terrero Mencey Tegueste, general view.
Medianito IV beats his opponent
Alfonso Garcia, Destacado A, of Club de Lucha Tegueste, jumps of joy together with his team mates and their fans, as they win the match against Club de Lucha Victoria.
Ricardo Gonzalez, aka Medianito IV, celebrates victory over CL Victoria.
Ricardo Gonzalez, aka Medianito IV, gets money from his fans after beating his opponent.
A kid wearing a Medianito IV shirt, looks at his idol as he is interviewed by media.
2 responses to Photo essay: Lucha Canaria
Me gusta como has planteado la historia y las fotos
Gracias compañero. Todo es mejorable, pero sí, estoy razonablemente contenta con estos primeros intentos de “photo essay”.