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Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Tenerife Village Fiesta: Day 6
Yesterday afternoon, I moseyed along down to the day's events for the fiestas: the exhibition of Native Sports (which, following mass, actually did start around about the advertised time, as I wagered.)
Although it's often on the TV here, I've not paid a lot of attention to Lucha Canaria (Canarian Wrestling) before, but anything live lends its own atmosphere and, as such, it's easy to see why this is the most popular of the indigenous sports in Tenerife.
Canarian wrestling has more in common with a Japanese martial art than wrestling as we know it in the UK or the US. Lucha is "gentlemanly", in that opponents don't seek to hurt one another and they shake hands before each bout. They also help each other up afterwards too: good manners that the guy in charge was constantly instilling into the kids present and, running the ring in a similar way as I have seen martial arts masters run a dojo. 
Junior wrestlers from Buenavista, Icod de los Vinos and San Juan de la Rambla provided the demonstration: six lads and one girl, who was certainly no easy opponent for the boys she wrestled. All made much more fun for the crowd when they got volunteer kids from the village to have a go at wrestling too.
Before that, there was a demonstration of Juego de Palo (Stick fighting), which originates with the Guanches, ancient inhabitants of Tenerife.
Meanwhile, the older men played Bola Canaria (Canarian boules) on the village's purpose-built playing area, across from the plaza, at the back of the health center.
I'd long wondered what that was there for and thought maybe it was a flowerbed someone forgot to plant or a zen style sunken garden. My dog thought it was a K9 public convenience, but when there aren't any for humans, it seems unlikely they would install one for dogs and then there's the fact that there is a bank of seating alongside. Duh, now we know! :)
And there's more sport lined up for ...
Fiesta Day 6 - Wednesday, September 19th
At 16:00 Football - between single girls and married women.
At 17:30 Football - between the single blokes and married men.
Both of these, reputedly, will take place at the Estadio Los Pedregales (Los Pedregales Stadium). Well, I know where Los Pedregales is, what I didn't know was that it had a "stadium" and, you'd tend to think you'd notice something like that, wouldn't you? Wembley, it certainly ain't! :)
At 21:30 There is to be a Velada Musical (Musical Soirée or Social Evening)
Visit the following page for the start of this series of posts on these Fiestas.
Fiestas El Palmar 2007 Photos
Labels: Fiestas El Palmar 2007
