“Ver llegar”
A Spanish matadors’ phrase for dealing with the beast. A bull.
A large terrifying animal, yet really terrified himself. Though he appears angry he fights for his life. And matadors must use great concentration and calmness to overcome the wrath of this large beast.
Hemingway describes the phrase in Death in the Afternoon: “the ability to watch the bull come as he charges with no thought except to calmly see what he is doing and make the moves necessary to the maneuver you have in mind. To calmly watch the bull come is the most necessary and primarily difficult thing in bullfighting.”
As your bully comes charging toward you, nostrils puffing and snorting, watch the charge calmly, with no expression. Observe as the bully rushes toward you. Observe the beast as it’s aggression pushes out like a tea kettle’s steam pushing though the spout at full speed, desperately aching to exit.
And as you permit, then, the noise shall bounce off the walls around you.
