When you hear the word bull fighter, it’s hard not to conjure up an image of a red cape, a sparkly suit and the word “toro” echoing throughout a stadium.
In Central Alberta however, the term bullfighter brings about a much different image.
“I guess I’m more or less a protection and freestyle bullfighter,” said Kris Buffalo, a member of the Samson Cree Nation about an hour north of Red Deer.
He puts it on the line during bull riding events, distracting the one ton of fun from getting at the cowboy who may have been tossed to the ground unceremoniously.
But for Kris Buffalo the real excitement comes when he is face to face with the beast during the freestyle competition. This is when he is having fun and playing with the bull for one minute.
Playing? Fun? Yep.
“That’s when I go out and kind of perform my tricks I guess with just the bull itself and me in the arena,” said the 30-year-old who doubles as an Educational Assistant in Mascwacis.
So what sort of tricks does a bull fighter perform?
“The tricks I do are just jukes and jives as much as a football player might do to his opponent. Recently in Las Vegas, I got to jump one which is called a Tomahawk Jump.”
This is where the bull is placed in a chute and when the gate is opened he runs straight at the fighter. Buffalo says he then runs right at the bull. You read that right. He runs at the bull.
“Yeah, he’s coming full speed and I just jump him, with my hands coming down with the motion kind of like a tomahawk while I’m doing the splits and he kind of goes under me.”
The bulls he faces are somewhat lighter than those ridden in rodeo events which makes them a little more agile and a whole lot faster. But they still have horns.
“Those horns are like baseball bats when they are coming at you,” he said.
Oh, and these guys want the baddest, meanest bull in the corral to score points with the judges.
Bullfighters are judged on their lateral movement and how close they can come to the bull without getting hooked or horned. All the bad stuff which can happen when one is playing with an animal that large. Some of these bullfighters will dive over the bull, others stand flat-footed and leap over the charging load of beef and then some have done a back-flip off the back of the bull. This is not a sport for the faint of heart.
“It’s mostly reading the bull and not getting run over. That’s a good plan,” said Buffalo.
He says during his career of about ten years he’s been quick enough to avoid the business end of the bull, but he has been run over a few times.
“It’s mostly the adrenalin which takes over where you can’t really feel it at the moment but then later on when you get back to the hotel you feel it in your muscles and your bones for sure.”
He comes from a rodeo family, so the sport has been in his blood from an early age, but he credits his hockey playing for his athletic ability. He attended a rodeo school in Vermillion, AB where he was taught the fundamentals of bullfighting.
But he recalls some initial training one day on the Buffalo family ranch when he was younger which ended with a seed being planted by his uncle.
“A cow with her calf broke through a fence and came charging at me and I got out of the way safely and he suggested I go to rodeo school.”
His father, Kirk Buffalo was a bull and saddle bronc rider, but Kris says he wanted his kids to be hockey players instead of rodeo cowboy’s and get to university.
“I guess I’m the only who came back to the lifestyle,” he said.
He says he understands what he does is very dangerous and so mental preparation, along with physical training is key to avoid being a statistic in the arena.
“When you do it right and you have that confidence and you are successful it’s mostly that self-accomplishment that you walked away from the danger factor,” he said.
Buffalo may put himself in a dangerous situation in the arena, but he also works with high-risk youth in Mascwacis school system and connects with them through his bullfighting. He is a very good role model for kids in an area of the province which has seen it’s share of bad role models.
“I show them a picture of what I do and it kind of gets me on their trusting side of me helping and working with them.”
He does some public speaking and he recognizes he is one of those success stories to emerge from the region.He wants to make sure he shares his success with those youth who may just need to be pointed in a different direction.
Buffalo is headed in his own direction-upwards. He is one of the premiere bullfighters in the country but also as a person First Nations youth can look up to.
You can catch his act February 17th at Westerner Park in Red Deer during the Rebel Energy Services Bull Riding event.
He’s one of those guys who plays with the bull but doesn’t get the horns.
