What do you want to be when you grow up?

I always wanted to be a professor. I've always wanted to teach what I know. I said at home that when I was young, I wanted to be a gymnastics teacher, but then it wasn't very common, and my parents gave me four other options: medicine, architecture, engineering or economics and business. Because the thing I hated least was that of business science, I chose that. After graduating I went to Madrid and while working there I studied Physical Activity and Sport Sciences. Since then, I have held many courses. Lifelong learning is essential if you want to be competitive.

Now you're a professor, so you've done your dream?

I made competitions and got the teaching position at the Eibar Professional University. I am teaching in Spanish because I do not have an Euskera degree. I had problems with the members of the IRALE (Teacher's Alphabetatze Euskalduntze) program. I made some criticisms and although before, when it was not yet needed in the title, I was always taken into account, I was told that now I am not able to teach in Basque. The head of studies also told me that in my case I saw black ghosts. I'm very comfortable in Eibar. In this degree that gives the degree of technical in physical education and sport I teach theory and practice: methodology, games, climbing, personal defense, musculation and table tennis, among others. We don't have to get bored. In addition, I have my music venue here in Hernani. We work especially judo, jiu-jitsu and operational personal defense. It was a long time ago that I taught martial arts courses to local policemen, and lately I am deepening the personal defense of women, with the intention of expanding this offer in different places.

In addition to the classes, we offer a new coaching service for companies based on the experiences of the rings. What's that like?

Everything is related to my personal story. In sport, in confinement and in life in general, you have to be very clear how far you want to go and what you are capable of. You have to put yourself very well. The same thing happens in the business world. In the face of a business, stress and fear arise, especially the psychological: if I will be able, if I will do it well… On the other hand, you have to know how to control and manage all the resources that you have in your team. As I thought about it, an international company, Pernaud-Ricard, contacted me in 2012 to do a team building job in Pamplona. The training was very good for me. With a lot of work, we've learned a lot. We have now prepared workshops to work in companies. The first thing is to see what fear is and where it comes from, because if you don't know it, you can't control it. Understanding is the first step. From there we work several ideas: that all the jobs are needed in the company, that not all have the same capacity within the group, but that all have to feel important, etc.

In addition to the theoretical workshop, we held a practical workshop for everyone to see how they make their decisions under pressure. The practical consists of three parts: in the first the members of the group must run on a circuit, each at their own pace. In the second the same thing but with three bulls rolled back. Participants must make decisions quickly. In the third exercise, the whole group runs. That is recorded in video and then one by one is analyzed the decisions and behaviors taken in it, to see the capabilities and place each person in its scope. The workshop is quite playful and very productive.

He started very young at the shuttles.

At 17, 1971.

Has it changed a lot? Why has it been massified in recent years?

It's normal. Society is also changing. It's becoming very competitive, and that's reflected in the lockdown. Television has made lockdown known all over the world. In front of the cameras people want to stand out and that is why they wear t-shirts of different colors or know where they are and try to go ahead of them at any price… The real runners do not. In the race they will appear on television because they are very close to the bull, but not because their goal is for them to appear on the screen. We have now reached that point and it seems to me that there is no turning back. However, I believe that something can be controlled.

Is the new Lockdown Ordinance, which theoretically brings many fines, short?

These things have already begun to be done some time ago, but they are patches. Politicians know that if something starts to change around the rings, there will be a huge controversy, even if things are done right. And politicians don't want debates. The lockdown is very abandoned. A few years ago, everything was controlled on the street. If you did something wrong, then forty people would surround you and beat you tremendously. It was street justice. But it's over. It has now been abandoned and there are terrible excesses. It gives me a lot of pain because I think it can be controlled. If we were somewhere else, the source of revenue would be the economic, it would charge the entrance, the merchandising would be awesome, everything would be uniformed and everything controlled.

Exemplary fines will be imposed, yes, but they will remain. Personally, I'm afraid, because I'm waiting in a home portal for the lockdown to start, so I'm not being focused and suffering the pressure from the street. Now that is banned and I am afraid I will be fined for it.

What would you do?

The sanfermines are Sanfermines and the encierros of Pamplona are not like anywhere else. I am very purist and I think everyone should be dressed in white and red. The wedges are also perfect, but nothing else. I have had many opportunities to carry advertising, and I have always said no. I buy white t-shirts always take the cheapest ones so I don't show any brand. All this is out of respect and to avoid improvisation. You can't allow a person, after putting in seven lines and with chanclets, to suddenly decide that yes, that he wants to run. Some say lockdown is free. OK. To participate yes, but not to do what you want. Forcing to wear proper clothing or shoes is not an attack on freedom. I went to Buñol's Tomatina last year. In previous years, a village of 5,000 people reached 40,000 accesses. Now, instead, they've decided to sell their tickets. The feeling they had there last year was that locals have regained the party. It should also be decided: take under control or collapse. Do we want to stay or not? I've known the best times and I've been adapting, but I'm sad to see where the lockdown is going.

Is it true that some tour operators leave tourists in the run of the lockdown to see the lockdown without any kind of protection?

That is true. And this year they will also come. In spite of that, the fact of suddenly putting eighty people in, minutes before the lockdown begins, is likely to be impressive for money, warming someone's pocket and above all the prohibitions. If something happens, who is to blame? It's a loophole.

You say that this year is going to run. But you didn't make the last goodbye in 2010?

Yes. When her little daughter was born, Aisha. A lot of things came together: forty years running, in 2010 I ended very physically ill – as a result of a fall the languages took me by my feet and left all the muscles on the right weakened – and I was tired of the pressure here. I thought I was at the end of a cycle. I have continued to run in other towns, in Tafalla, in Tudela… but the following year I did not go to Pamplona. In 2012, I came to do a team bulding job, and last year, on the first day, when I saw myself from a balcony, I felt like I was dying inside. Because I was on a fifth floor, otherwise I would have jumped. My colleague Jokin Zuasti told me to stop nonsense and run. I ran four lights and had tremendous sensations. I saw myself very physically and psychically. I'd like to go without pressure, but for good and for bad I'm not anonymous. Now I will be there to give a boost to the new tourism project.

Spain Tastic sells tickets for the Tomatina de Buñol. has organised this new project with the help of the Valencian company. Some start mocking on the balcony of Julen Madina...

Yes, and they've put in the press that I don't know how much money I'm going to collect for each person. But that's what the tour operator charges, then what I get is much less. What if it was, what? What problem is there if someone wants to pay for it? In Pamplona, in Sanfermin everyone charges: journalists, photographers, tabernacles… There is an economic option, but it seems that it is not lawful for me to enter. Do I not have the right to show some tourists what lockdown and parties are? If I do what I do, it will always look bad in some sectors. I like the approach of this company, because I have often felt like a cork tourist: going to a place and seeing things above, but without understanding anything. I want to teach outsiders what traditions are, where they come from and why they're made. I believe that these people will live the party differently and love the city more. Besides allowing it, it's nice. That is why I do not understand that there are criticisms. Everything Julen Madina does seems to be wrong.

If you were PTV (from Pamplona of All Life), would it be different?

Maybe yes, I don't know. There are some that don't forgive me for being Gipuzkoans. Even if I go to the Sanfermines for thousands of years, I will always be a stranger. I've also had to endure a lot of really violent criticism and behavior at the expense of the shutters. There are people who have always heard that I want to be the protagonist and that I try to put myself next to the bulls and believe that blindly, even if they don't know me. Before judging someone, you have to know them. Three times it has happened to me, for example, that a person would follow me and push me against the flock as the flock passed by. I've also had death threats, and in 2004, when I was hit by the run, they threw banners into the bullring. Why all that? A sociological examination. A lot of people come to greet me and embrace me, but others treat me in a very violent way, yes, without getting closer. After appearing on the The Conqueror of the End of the World program, a lot of people told me that I didn't know it was.

Will St. Fermín be special?

Yes, different. Still this year we expect few customers because the new project has been launched very late. In addition, I have been called every day from the United States, once the lockdown is over, to make a story on a TV in Los Angeles.

Have you not had national television offerings?

I think I had choices on Spanish television, but two years ago I criticized them and this year they have left me aside. They understood that I was criticizing them because they gave the lights as if they were football matches and they didn't like it.

What did you feel when you received the cords?

Impossible. Pure impossibility. I remember the sound of the puncture of the horn, the burning smell of the bull's snakes and the scratches of the helmets on the ground. At that time, I didn't feel pain, until I caught my ass and got up. I told myself all the time not to move, to calm down and to try to control my pulsations in order to lose my blood as little as possible. That's why I'm very cold. In Pamplona there are the best doctors and resources and I tried to think about it.

More and more anti-bulls are facing bullfights.

These debates are sometimes very demagogic. I'm a bullfighter and not a bullfighter. If these bulls grow, it's because they make parties. It's an artificial race. I don't like to see animals suffering either, but it's the end of the cycle. They live four years in the best conditions before they end up like this. I find the life of cows, calves or pigs more sad and not so much talk about it. Intellectually, I find it hard to admit that animal pain because I am a bull, but I see a direct connection between its existence and bullfights.