As funny as it may seem, shucking off your shoes and socks and walking across hot coals—known as firewalking—has become a well-known part of motivational and management seminars in the United States. Motivational expert Anthony Robbins teaches it, and companies send their management personnel to seminars to learn how to do it in the hope it will boost their confidence, leading in turn to greater productivity.

In fact, it’s turned into a big business. Tolly Burkan started the recent firewalking movement in the United States, and he’s the guy that showed the ropes to Robbins and the rest. He’ll teach you, too, for $US 2,500 in a three-day retreat in Sonoma, California.

But if you don’t want to spend a small fortune and are near Tokyo in mid-March, you can perform the firewalking ritual with the monks at the Yakuoin Temple in Hachioji to celebrate the arrival of spring. The monks have been doing it for centuries, and they’ve invited members of the public to walk with them for the past 50 years.

In fact, they held the ritual again last Sunday. Rather than reinvent the wheel, I’ll just direct you to this report on the 2000 event by Yuki Yanagi. Yuki’s not a native speaker, but her short article is easy to read and covers all the basics nicely.

If you want to see photos of the entire ceremony, I highly recommend this series of 37 excellent pictures taken last year. The individual pictures come with no explanation, but none are really needed. (If you read Yuki’s explanation first, you’ll know why they’re shooting arrows.)

There’s an even better set of photos on this Japanese-language site. If you can’t read the Japanese, just look for the rotating blue arrow at the bottom of the page. The ceremony photos are in four sections, so all you have to do is click on each one in sequence to the right of the arrow. This site has photos of the walkers rubbing salt on their feet before they step out. Salt has long been used as a purification symbol in Japanese religious ceremonies, and it also may help dry out the feet, which is the key to a successful firewalk.

I don’t want to ruin your experience, but you might want to check out the explanation of how firewalking is not as difficult as it seems here at Wikipedia. You may be disillusioned, but at least you’ll save $2,500. You can use that for plane fare to Tokyo to walk with the monks, and have some cash left over for other fun.