“As bullfighters, we’re kind of wired different.” – Jordynn Swanson
The Virden Indoor Rodeo’s split-second sport of bull riding is up next. The chutes at the end of the arena shake and rattle as a bull rider tightens down on a bull with a fierce name? such as, ‘White Lightning’. It’s the moment that fires up bullfighter Jordynn Swanson.
The clown, the barrel, mounted pick-up men, two bullfighters are ready for bull riding action.
The bullfighter from Hartney, Man. grew up as an athlete, often a hockey and baseball team captain. However, he was even more drawn to extreme sports like jumping and racing dirt bikes.
“I got started when I went to a bull riding practice pen with some friends of mine that rode bulls. I was just a bronc rider,” Swanson explains.
Lo and behold, the scheduled bullfighter didn’t show up.
“I just stepped in and started fighting bulls for them in a practice pen. It was easy, right from day one.”
It was a wreck of his own while riding a saddle bronc that brought about Swanson’s change in directions. His wrist and hand were damaged requiring surgery and resulting in a slight loss of dexterity. Four years ago, in 2012, Swanson made a professional switch to bullfighting.
While the crowd is dazzled by the athletic footwork, a bullfighter’s job is to distract the bull and give the rider that little bit of extra time to get up and get out of the way.
“As bullfighters, we’re kind of wired different. We’re wired like firemen or policemen, or people in the army. When things start heading south, we’re not the ones that run away, we’re the ones that run to the fire.”
Is there a fear factor?
“I honestly don’t even think about it. When there’s a combination of a mean bull and a guy that’s kind of known for getting in a bit of a wreck, (as bullfighters, we know who they are), whoever I’m working with, we do our little signal that we could be in for a wreck, so we’re just that little bit more prepared than normal even,” he says, adding, “but you tuck it all back away and you just do your job.”
The bullfighter dodges in, actually touching the raging 1500plus pounds of bull power.
Swanson will holler at the bull. “I’m fairly vocal.”
And there are other tricks to the trade. “I always try to at least get a hand on their head. Because with bulls, when you touch their head, they close their eyes.” Then they put their head up, interrupting the charge.
“So that’s what gives the cowboy that extra half second to get moving and get gone.”
That’s what’s supposed to happen, but you can’t count on anything in this sport.
“They say all bulls do it. But I’ve definitely seen a few of them that don’t.”
Bullfighters can put on quite a show for the crowd. There are even freestyle events where it’s a bouncing bull against a daring bullfighter for 60 seconds. The more aggressive the bull, the more daring the bullfighter, the higher he scores.
“If you’ve got one that doesn’t leave your hip pocket, he’s going to rank way more points than one that makes one round and then [leaves you alone].”
Swanson has participated in freestyles, even entering the Las Vegas finals where he did respectably well, scoring a second in his first round, and winning some side events there.
At Virden, Swanson’s focus is protecting the bull riders. “We do our best job when we don’t even get noticed. If you go home at the end of the rodeo night and say, ‘man the bulls weren’t even chasing the cowboys,’ that means that we’ve done a good job.”
