I Walked on Fire
(and lived to tell about it)

by Ron Kurtus (revised 9 May 1997)

Have you ever heard about how people can walk on hot coals after attending a motivational seminars? Did you ever wonder how they do it and what it has to do with personal improvement?

I had such an experience and will now relate to you what happened and the lessons learned.

Heard about fire walking

A number of years ago, when I was living in Los Angeles but visiting my parents in Milwaukee, I saw a report on the NBC Evening News about people walking on fire. Tom Brokaw started the report with, "Only in California..." He went on to show people at a seminar walking on hot coals in their bare feet.

I thought, "Boy, isn't that nuts?"

Met some fire walkers

On my flight back home to Los Angeles, I met a couple who were going to Hawaii to go sky diving. They said they had recently walked on fire, and now they wanted to try something else more challenging.

When I told them I had seen something about the fire walk on television, they said I should try it myself. "Try it. You'll like it," they encouraged.

Then they gave me the telephone number of a fellow named Tony Robbins, who was running these Fire Walk Seminars.

Things fell into place

When I got home, I called the number. A woman told me that they would be having their last fire walk that Friday, before going on the road. It would be in Santa Monica, just a few miles from where I lived. If I wasn't satisfied (or too severely burned) I could get my money back.

Isn't it amazing how some things just fall into place, like they were meant to happen? That is what they call synchronicity.

So, I signed up.

The Fire Walk Seminar

The Fire Walk Seminar consisted of the Friday night fire walk and then two days of material on the neurolinguistic programming (NLP) method of personal improvement.

The seminar leader, Tony Robbins, emphasized that the seminar was not about walking on fire. Rather, it was a metaphor for overcoming your fears and for improving yourself.

Profitable for Robbins

The cost was $400 for the weekend seminar, and there were about 150 people participating. That came out to be $60,000 weekend earnings for Robbins and company. Not bad.

Could see them preparing hot coals

While Robbins was running us through various confidence building exercises, his crew was building a huge bonfire within our view outside. I started to have second thoughts.

Had to sign form with lawyer

At midnight, after signing release forms with his lawyer, in case we became seriously burned (how's that for a confidence builder?), we lined up outside. There was a path 6 feet wide and 20 feet long of glowing, red hot embers.

I'm not that foolish

No way was I going to be so foolish to walk across those babies!

But somehow I found myself in the line, and soon it was my turn. Robbins told me to concentrate on something cool. He told me to chant "Cool moss" over and over. "And don't look down!"

I felt like a champion

So I started walking across those hot embers. I barely felt a cinder. Then as I got to the end, I yelled out in celebration. That was part of the ceremony.

And I felt like a champion. I had overcome a scary challenge and achieved a difficult goal. Hey, I was a champion!

How is it possible?

There were many scientific studies about how people can walk on glowing cinders without getting their feet burned. The answer finally came out that it wasn't mind-over-matter as Robbins and others had claimed. It also wasn't that fear caused the soles of your feet to sweat, thus protecting you, as the newspapers reported.

Rather, the answer could be explained by simple physics. The wood used had a very low rate of heat exchange, such that the embers were red hot on the inside but relatively cool on the surface. As you walked across the coals, you were never on a cinder long enough for the heat to burn your feet.

If a material that had a higher rate of heat exchange, such as coal or aluminum, you would be severely burned.

Message important in overcoming fears

Fire walking is one of many ways people can overcome fears. There are seminars and camps where people skydive, climb mountains, and walk among snakes. What is important is the message presented along with the challenge.

I felt that the material on overcoming fears and NLP that Tony Robbins presented in his seminar where valuable messages to me.

Lessons from this story

• Some things seem to be meant to happen, according to the chain of events.
• Overcoming a fear can make you feel like a champion.
• A big build-up can make something safe seem dangerous.
• There are scientific explanations for many mysterious phenomena, and you must separate them from the mystical explanations that people like to hear.
• (Anything else...?)

Reader Feedback

Debbi Gould wrote on 16 December 1997:

First.... great web site.... Second.... I just attended the Robbins Firewalk in Dallas (about a week ago) and am still concerned about the "days of brow beating" and twisted tales that followed the firewalk. I found much of what Robbins said was filled with "convenient half truths." It seems he would conveniently  support his statements by twisting a fact/data ever so slightly.

I also was aware if several incidents of people leaving the conference/seminar with statements of  "Robbins reminds me of Hitler... the way he manipuates people". Did you see any of this type of reaction? I would be very interested in your observations.

Debbi --

Thanks for your comments. When I took the firewalk seminar, Tony Robbins spent much time explaining neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) principles which were very good. Since then, I have noticed that some of his stories -- like helping the Army -- bring up questions as to why they don't continue to have him help them.

Robbins has a very powerful personality, and I am sure he has helped people, but he is also driven to make as much money as he can. He certainly has been getting more and more slick in what he presents. Perhaps too slick, such that people see through him.

I don't think Robbins manipulates people in an evil manner as Hitler did. If he is doing some sort of therapy to eliminate a phobia, manipulation isn't all that bad, but if he is manipulating people to sell his product, that is a different story. Ron Kurtus

What do you think?

Do you have any questions, comments, or opinions on this subject? If so, contact me at ron@ronkurtus.com with your feedback. I will try to get back to you as soon as possible. Be sure to state the title or subject matter, so I know what material you are referring to.

Also, feel free to establish a link from your web site to pages in this site.

Where can you go from here?

• Web Site Outline
  • School for Champions
    • Becoming a Champion
      • I Walked on Fire

Terms, Definitions, and References

Synchronicity

Carl Jung coined the term synchronicity to describe meaningful coincidences that conventional notions of chance cannot explain.

A good book on the subject is Synchronicity by Combs and Holland, Paragon House, 1990.

Back to synchronicity text

Neurolinguistic programming (NLP)

NLP is a set of tools for modeling human excellence, with special emphasis on patterns of communication. It was created by Richard Bandler in the 1970s.

A classic text on NLP is Influencing with Integrity by Genie Laborde, Syntony Publishing, 1984.

Back to NLP text

Heat exchange

See an explanation of Heat in my Physical Science tutorial.

Back to text

For more information on firewalking, check out: www.heartfire.com/firewalk/pages/experience.html