How life-changing gong bath experiences set Hong Kong studio founder on new course

After 28 years in the corporate world Martha Collard was moved to play gongs and opened Red Doors Studio to share their stress-busting power

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Martha Collard strikes a gong at Red Doors Studio in Wong Chuk Hang, Hong Kong, which she opened in 2015 after nearly three decades in corporate work. Photo: Nora Tam

Published: 6:57pm, 21 Mar 2025Updated: 7:15pm, 21 Mar 2025

Sound practitioner Martha Collard was at a gong workshop in the US state of Pennsylvania a year ago when a woman whose daughter lives in Hong Kong asked her: “Do you know this studio there with all these gongs?”

She knew it quite well: it was to her Red Doors Studio in Wong Chuk Hang on the south side of Hong that the woman was referring. Opened 10 years ago, it now houses Asia’s largest private collection of gongs – 55 and counting.

This oasis of calm on the 21st floor of an industrial building is where Collard fulfils her passion to help others rejuvenate and deeply relax, primarily through gong sessions, yoga practice, and walking meditation on a labyrinth on the studio floor.

Canadian-born Collard arrived in Hong Kong in early 1986 as an executive search consultant, went on to start her own company in human resources and management consulting, and in 2010 became the vice-president of group organisational wellness for retailer Lane Crawford Joyce Group.

I just left my body and flew through the universe and witnessed the Big Bang! I just thought, geez, I’ve got to do that again!

Martha Collard on her first gong bath

By this time she had taken up kundalini yoga, also called the “yoga of awareness”. At a training event in New Mexico in the US in 2012, she had her first gong bath. There is no water involved: sound waves wash over participants.

Experiencing harmonious sound, such as that of gongs, chanting or drumming, has been used to clear minds and bodies for centuries.