“Walk with purpose,” Lee Walls tells us, demonstrating a confident stride.
“Or like you’re rushing for a bus or really need a pee!”
I’m among a very nervous group of people preparing for a firewalk and instructor Lee Wall’s humour is relaxing us.
As we arrived for our coaching a fire was roaring outside. There are some anxious looking faces around the room.
Including mine. I’d been trying my hardest over the last few days not to think of this moment. Each time it snuck into my consciousness my stomach lurched. What had I let myself in for, for the sake of a feature?
But by the time we are lined up to walk over the hot coals the atmosphere is electric.
Nerves and excitement are the same emotion, Lee had told us. And we’re channelling the latter.
It’s a Sunday evening in Kirkcaldy and I’ve joined a charity event hosted by Dunfermline-based Firewalk Scotland.
Around 50 of us are gathered in Kirkcaldy YMCA Hub with Lee, who is also a motivational speaker.
Fears of spiders, judgement – and Mick Hucknall!
During a 90-minute training session we discuss our fears. There’s the usual culprits – heights, spiders, sharks. But it turns out some people are scared of fish and Mick Hucknall!
We talk about our emotional fears. Being judged, feeling isolated, public speaking, and so on.
And Lee demolishes them.
“The things that keep you up at night worrying,” she says, “they rarely happen.
“An average of 10 people will cry at your funeral. Only what they think of you matters.”
How firewalking is possible
Next she explains how fire walking is possible.
First the science.
It’s all about thermal conductivity.
Coal and wood are poor heat conductors. The layer of ash covering them is an even worse conductor.
Feet, too, are weak at transferring heat.
Then the technique.
A brisk stride. Remember the bus or that urgent need for the loo!
Poor conduction combined with low contact time mean there is little chance of your feet burning.
When I walk on fire
The stack of wood lit before we arrived has reduced to red hot embers. These are raked level with a layer of ash for us to walk over.
When Lee tells us it’s time for the big moment, we’re all fired up eager to go.
Darkness has fallen and embers glow as the first walker sets off to cheers and claps of fellow walkers and spectators.
I’m near the back of the queue and it’s not long before Morgan, one of the first fire walkers is behind me.
“I’m going again!” she declares, clearly elated by the experience.
When my turn comes there’s a quick flutter of nerves as I kick off my flip-flops and set off.
Then there’s just a feeling of warmth underfoot after the cold of the wet grass and the crunch of dry embers. It’s a little like being on a shelly beach in a hot country.
I’m walking on fire!
And like Morgan, I’m rejoining the queue to go again.
Walking in memory of teenager Paige
It’s been a special evening for us all.
But perhaps most so for Michelle Falconer, who is walking in memory of her daughter, Paige Dougall.
Paige died aged 17 in January 2022, after relapsing with Ewing’s sarcoma, a childhood cancer.
Some of tonight’s fire walkers are raising money for the charity Michelle founded, Paige’s Music Butterflies. Others are doing so for Fife Health Charity.
Michelle tells me: “It felt quite amazing. It’s setting your mind to it and just doing it.
“If she [Paige] had been here, she would have been laughing.”
Michelle also walked twice.
“To be honest, I didn’t really feel it that hot,” she says. “It’s weird because you’re walking over hot coals, well ash and embers, and you expect it to be so hot.”
How Lee started Firewalk Scotland
The first time Lee walked on fire almost 20 years ago “blew her mind”.
“I felt like I had found the key to life,” she says.
“Within a week I had booked a flight to the States to learn to be an instructor.”
She established Firewalk Scotland on her return and staged her first event on Hogmanay 2006.
“I always talk about firewalking as being a metaphor for life,” she says. “You can walk on fire, you can do the next scary thing.”
To open her events, which are popular for charity fundraising and corporate teambuilding, Lee rings a bell to get the attention of her firewalkers-to-be.
She says: “At the start of the night when I ring my wee bell you can hear a pin drop.
“Everybody is terrified. They don’t know what to expect.
“I think people come along expecting it to be a bit weirdy beardy, tree-hugger.
I can walk on fire
“And it’s nothing like that. I use lots of humour so it’s fun, it’s engaging.
“There’s incredible energy in the room.
“My hope is that people take some of that energy with them and are able to make some big changes in their lives.”
Lee’s right. There is incredible energy at that Kirkcaldy event.
Just a couple of hours earlier I had arrived with my heart thudding with nerves.
On my drive home it is beating out of my chest with pride.
I can walk on fire.
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