Daniel Luque (Gerena, 1988) laughs little. His usual seriousness is not a matter of anger or bitterness, he simply lives so involved in his profession that his head does not stop spinning. However, he belongs to one of the most serious professions in the world and every time he dresses as a bullfighter, that tremendous depth emerges in his gestures and in his gaze.
Make me a small balance of your season …
Well, a good season, with very important afternoons, although I am sincere to you there have also been others in which I had more hopes and in the end they have not come out as I intended. But, over the years, one is knowing that this profession of the bull is like that.
Term I phrase. Alicante It is a place that …
It is a square to which the bullfighters want to come because here the matador is respected a lot and is allowed to do whatever it is necessary for a level to level up. No hurry or public recriminations. I like Alicante. And it is very important, a triumph here gives you a new perspective in the remainder of the season and serves for the fairs that remain to close, so this Alicante fair is very important for bullfighters.
Now that the years pass and you have won in maturity as a man and as a bullfighter, what mistakes of the past will not commit again?
UF, many! (laughs). For example, I would not believe that I know everything and that I do not need to continue learning. In the bull, as in art, one is constantly evolving and what seduces you today, tomorrow may not so much. But that is not bad, it is part of the evolution to which we are all subject. When I was younger, I thought that everything was more static and that if you got to master something, all the work done was already. Big mistake for my part. And, on the other hand, knowing how to listen is fundamental. More than hearing what is told, listening carefully and then purifying that knowledge. He thinks that bullfighting is a very intense profession and we are sometimes so involved that we have no one to speak to us really because everything is very quickly and sometimes we have to stop to continue.
“In the bull, as in art, one is constantly evolving and what seduces you today, tomorrow may not so much”
Do you think you have learned from mistakes?
It is only learned from mistakes, victories or triumphs reaffirm you on the way, but they only serve you to see that you are capable, nothing more. Where are the teachings in the failures, that is where life gives you a direct blow with which you spab you or stop forever.
You started to succeed from a young age …
Yes. That is good and bad at the same time. The bullfighters are very individualistic, in this profession you surround yourself with many people, but you are always alone and that, when you are a teenager, nobody tells you. You see it, little by little, when you fall and get up again. And so a thousand times. And then the bull arrives and shakes you hard and start again from scratch. It is that hard, but it is the reality that the bullfighters live. Triumphing young is not bad if you have people who really love you and show you the way, but it is always not like that and sometimes you lose yourself.
Returning to the present moment, you count your afternoons almost by large doors, where is the secret of this past regularity of triumphs?
Well, I don't know. Surely my hobby and my ambition are the fuel so that all the machinery is launched. When you are active toasting in so many places every day, many times you don't even have time to think. Correct what does not work and improve what is missing. Everything is so fast that you are part of that hurricane. But there is an engine inside you that tells you to continue, that you fight and I suppose that all of that results in triumph.
In addition to everything that has told me about Alicante, I notice with special desire to fight here …
It is like that. I like this square and this fair and after how bad it is in Seville, in Madrid … when Alicante arrives the bullfighters we know that we come to enjoy bullfighting in a friendlier and more festive way, in the end the bullfighting is that, a great party of emotions and in Alicante that is lived since you go down the van.
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