Virtually unknown to tourists and not promoted, yet a true top-level sport on the Canary Islands themselves: Lucha Canaria. Literally, it means ‘Canarian fight’, but it is a Canarian form of wrestling. And ‘fight’ has an aggressive tone, something pleasantly absent from this sport. The word sportsmanship still truly lives up to its meaning here—and that in a ‘combat sport’.
History of Lucha Canaria
Canarian wrestling dates back to before the Spanish conquered the islands, and was therefore probably brought from the area that is now Morocco. Over the hundreds of years during which the original inhabitants wrestled between the different islands with virtually no communication, the sport developed slightly different rules on each island.
Those rules were first recorded in 1872, making Lucha Canaria one of the first defined wrestling sports in the world. It was not until after 1940 that provincial federations for the sport were established, and the official Spanish federation was ultimately founded in 1984. Because the sport is practiced on sand, it usually has its own dedicated venue, almost always a round hall with a circular sandpit in the middle, known as the ‘terrero’.
Rules of Lucha Canaria
In the middle of it, two wrestlers take their places and greet each other. With the left hand, each firmly grips the opponent’s rolled-up right trouser leg and places the right hand on the opponent’s left shoulder. They then place their heads on each other’s right shoulder and point their right hands toward the ground. As soon as the referee blows the whistle, the aim is to make the opponent touch the ground with a part of the body other than the feet. Striking and kicking are not allowed; however, wrestlers may jerk, push, pull, swing and lift. In short, the goal is to throw the opponent off balance. Weight and strength can help, but it is remarkable how often technique proves to be the decisive factor.
The bouts last a maximum of 90 seconds, and each pair of opponents always wrestles two bouts against each other, or three if the match has not been decided after two bouts. However, there are different formats, depending on the number of participants and the agreed-upon ‘mode’. For example, teams may differ in size during different encounters.
