Ernst Hemingway considered Novilladas a good starting point to understand bullfighting.
“The bulls only goes for the percale of the cape or for the scarlet of the muleta if the man makes him and so handles the cloth that the bull sees it rather than the man. Therefore to really start to see bullfights a spectator should go to the NOVILLADAS or apprentice fights . There the bulls do not always go for the cloth because the bullfighters are learning before your eyes the rules of bullfighting and they do not always remember or know the proper terrain to take and how to keep the bull afgter the lure and away from the man. It is one thing to now the rules in principle and another ot remember them as they are needed when facing an animal that is seeking to kill you and the spectator who wants to see men tosed and gored rather than judge the manner in which the bulls are dominated should go to go a Novillada before he sees a Corrida de Toros. I should be a good thing for him to see first a Novillada anyway if he wants to learn the technique, since the employment of knowledge that we call by that bastard name is always most vivible in its imperfection. At a Novillada the spectator may see the mistakes of the bullfighter and the penalties that these mistakes carry. He will learn something too about the state of training or lack of training of the men and the effect this has on their courage.”
Ernst Hemingway; Death In The Afternoon