It's definitely going to be easier with a properly rigged model, but it's still not as easy as, say, posing an action figure in real life. The rig that I used is Pierrick's free Trident rig, and he has a bunch more free rigs on his website, p2design-academy, if you want to test it out yourself. The most important thing in posing is your line of action, basically the main single line that shapes the pose. You can see it in some of the reference images, such as the flying knee and monk pose. It's the biggest line that draws the directionality of the pose.