Lucha Canaria – the art of wrestling on the Canary Islands.
The Canarian wrestling “Lucha Canaria” is a typical and very popular sport of the locals. Its roots lie far back in the history of the islands and supposedly it served to solve disputes among the original inhabitants, the Guanches.
What is there to see? A ring-fight, which still follow the same rules since centuries. The “Luchada” (struggle) is between 2 wrestlers on a “Terrero” – a round circle filled with sand. Then they wrestlers start shoulder to shoulder with pulling, dragging and pushing and with various tricks, plenty of power and a lot of speed they try to get the other to come into contact with the sand.
What stands out – despite all ambitions the wrestler are fighting with a certain “kindness”. And to inquiries, I was told that that “Lucha Canaria” means also to respect each other. For this reason, there is not only a short embrace before the fight starts, but also a a handshake after every fight.
If you have time to look at theses event take it. It’s exciting to observe such heavyweights try to get each other out off balance and it is often surprising how agile and fast they are.
