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Cathy Hilborn Feng

Editor and Contributor, Health & Wellness


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.

For Collard it was a life-changing event: “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!”
She ordered a gong of her own and played it daily in her office at Lane Crawford. The more you play and experiment with it, Collard says, the more you learn the nuances of sacred sound.
With no teachers in Hong Kong, she read books, watched videos and attended workshops abroad. During a gong bath in Canada the next summer, Collard says her kidney stone dissolved.
She promptly ordered three more gongs.
“A few months later, a friend said, ‘We’re going to go to Slovenia to meet Don Conreaux, why don’t you come?’”

Now aged 90, Conreaux, a former Hollywood director, actor and writer, is a gong player who has been travelling the world training others in “the art of gong” for more than 50 years. Collard became a star student, follower and friend.
Scientific research on gongs and other forms of meditative sound is scant, but growing. This is how Conreaux describes the process:
“The sounds from the gong travel from the outer ear throughout the body via the vagus nerve, impacting brain waves, respiratory rate and heart rate.
“Sound enters the healing equation from several directions: it may alter cellular functions through energetic effects; it may entrain biological systems to function more homeostatically; it may calm the mind and therefore the body; or it may have emotional effects, which influence neurotransmitters and neuropeptides, which in turn help to regulate the immune system – the healer within.”
When she returned from meeting Conreaux, who agreed to visit Hong Kong in early 2015, Collard realised her work at Lane Crawford was done. She had more than 3,000 participants each month taking part in wellness activities, ranging from in-house massages to yoga and daily movement sessions, roof gardening and more.

So when a colleague suggested that she set up her own studio, she thought: “Sure, why not?” She found the venue, signed the lease on February 1, 2015, and opened on March 17 – with Conreaux playing at her side.
In 2018, Collard was asked to perform as a keynote speaker at a Global Wellness Summit that had been slated for Hong Kong but was shifted to Singapore because of political protests in the city.
German master silversmith and third-generation gong master Martin Blase, “arguably the best gong maker in the world”, was giving a workshop in Hong Kong when she got the invitation, and he agreed to make a special gong for the occasion.
“It is the most beautiful gong in the world,” Collard says of the multi-hued, 55-inch (140cm) titanium gong that is a focal point in her studio.

During the Covid-91 pandemic, Collard was invited to do an informal research project on the effects of gongs on senior executives. Once a week for 12 weeks, a group had a 20-minute gong bath.
Out of 18 executives, 11 came all 12 weeks. They reported a significant improvement in sleep, a decrease in perceived stress and a boost in overall well-being.
“One person got pregnant – she had been trying for two years,” Collard says. Another’s migraine stopped, and another’s arthritis disappeared.
“They all admitted that their lives were better. They felt less stress. Their relationships with others was better. They didn’t get so riled at work …. They found that there was more of a sense of ease in their lives.”
The studio, described by one Hong Kong travel guide as one of the best kept secrets in the city, now has regular weekly and monthly sessions – of kundalini yoga followed by meditation to the sound of the gongs, labyrinth walking with breathwork, midweek midday power naps, gong relaxation with meditation, “floating” gong baths with participants suspended in aerial hammocks, and more.

Monthly Saturday morning Circle of Hope sessions are free for cancer survivors and their loved ones, to learn self-care techniques and de-stress in a gong bath.
Collard is also an expert and enthusiastic gong teacher, keen to share the skills and techniques she has mastered. In the decade since Red Doors Studio opened, she estimates she has had more than 500 students, some of whom are now performers and teachers themselves.
This weekend, to celebrate its first decade of operation, the studio is offering a series of events, beginning with a meditation and gong session to welcome the spring equinox on Friday evening.

Saturday will feature kundalini meditation, trance breathwork, walking meditation on a labyrinth, a reiki-gong session, a drum jam and an evening puja – meditating while listening to the uninterrupted sound of several gongs over several hours.
All sessions are complimentary, although donations to charities are welcome.
For details, see Red Door Studio’s Facebook page: www.facebook.com/reddoorsstudiohk.
Red Doors Studio, Flat A, 21/F, Lee Fund Centre, 31 Wong Chuk Hang Road, Wong Chuk Hang, Hong Kong Island. Tel: 2110 0152, red-doors.com
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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

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Lifestyle

Health & Wellness

Health

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


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.


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

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}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

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