Three ancient practices, explained
Everything at Red Doors comes back to three practices: sound, the labyrinth and Kundalini yoga. Each is a form of meditation, and each suits a different kind of person. You can lie still and let the gongs do the work, walk a single winding path, or move with the breath.
Here is what each one is, where it comes from, and how to try it at the studio.
New to all three? Start with a gong relaxation evening. You lie down, covered and warm, and do nothing at all. Where to start ↓
The gong bath
You lie on a mat under a blanket while the gongs are played for about 45 minutes. There is nothing to learn and nothing to get right. The sound does the work.
What happens in a gong bath
The sound starts so quietly you cannot tell where it is coming from. Stroke by stroke it builds, until the room fills with a single wash of sound with no obvious source and no rhythm to anticipate. That unpredictability matters: there is no tune for the mind to follow, so it stops trying.
Thoughts thin out and you lose track of time. Some people fall asleep, some see colour behind their eyes, some feel a wave of emotion arrive without a reason attached to it. All of it is normal and none of it is required. Most people leave feeling calm, clear headed and lighter than when they arrived.
The instrument
Gongs date back to the Bronze Age, around 3500 BC, and were used across Asia for meditation, ceremony, communication and healing long before European orchestras adopted them in 1790. A gong is an idiophone: the whole instrument vibrates, so a single strike releases a fundamental note and a great many overtones at once. To the listener it can sound like many instruments playing together.
Red Doors is home to Asia’s largest collection of meditation gongs. Most are made by Paiste in Germany, each one hand-forged and tuned: symphonic gongs, whose rich overtones balance around a fundamental note, and planet gongs, tuned to frequencies Hans Cousto calculated from the orbits of the planets.
Why it works
Sound is a physical event before it is a musical one. A struck gong pushes the air into waves of pressure, and those waves push on everything they meet, including you. Low frequencies in particular pass straight into the body: a large gong is felt in the chest, the hands and the floor a moment before it is heard.
What is consistently observed under deep, sustained, unpredictable sound is a shift in the nervous system. Breathing slows, alertness drops, and attention loosens towards the drowsy, dreamlike edge of sleep, which practitioners call the theta state. People describe it as a different quality of rest from lying down in silence.
Sound healing works with vibration, not melody. It can be heard, felt and even seen.
Long before anyone had the vocabulary for it, cultures across the world built instruments for exactly this: gongs, bowls, chant and drums, used to move people from one state into another. Red Doors exists to make that available in Hong Kong, properly, with the right instruments in a room built for it.
Questions
When might a gong bath help?
When you feel stuck, when old patterns keep repeating, when you feel scattered or disconnected, or when you simply need rest.
How is it different from listening to music?
Music arranges sound into melody, rhythm and harmony for you to follow. A gong bath works with sustained vibration instead: no tune, no beat to anticipate, and a lot of it felt through the body as well as heard.
How does it connect to meditation?
Meditation is the practice of becoming a quiet observer of your own mind. Many people find that hard sitting in silence. The gong does some of the work for you: with nothing to hold on to, the mind settles on its own.
How many sessions will I need?
Some people feel a shift during their first session; for others it settles over the following days. Like any practice, the effect builds when you come regularly.
What should I bring?
Nothing. Mats, blankets and eye bags are provided. Wear something loose and warm, arrive 15 minutes early, and leave your shoes at the red door.
Is it a medical treatment?
No. Sound healing is a complementary wellness practice, not a substitute for medical advice or treatment. If you have a medical condition, talk to your doctor first and let us know when you book.
Walking meditation on the labyrinth
One path winds into the centre and back out again. You cannot get lost, so there is nothing to think about except the next step. For anyone who finds sitting still hard, it is meditation you can do on your feet.
A labyrinth is not a maze
A maze is a puzzle, full of choices and dead ends, and it keeps the thinking mind busy. A labyrinth has a single circuitous path and no dead ends at all. Its tight turns slow you down and make you notice what you are doing, what you are thinking and how you feel.
Mazes challenge. Labyrinths invite.
Labyrinths are thousands of years old and appear in cultures from India to North America to Europe, often at times of great change. The most famous is set into the floor of Chartres Cathedral in France, built in 1201.
The Red Doors labyrinth
The studio floor holds a permanent, 10-circuit labyrinth, 27 feet across. It is modelled on the labyrinth at Bayeux, which dates back to the 12th century, and it is open for group walks and facilitated sessions.
Martha Collard is the Asia Representative of The Labyrinth Society and a Veriditas Certified Labyrinth Facilitator and Builder. Her permanent public labyrinths can be walked in the garden of St John’s Cathedral and at the Star Ferry on the Hong Kong side.
Why people walk
To celebrate, to grieve, to slow down, to look for an answer, or out of simple curiosity. Afterwards, walkers often describe:
- A sense of calm
- Less stress
- Feeling balanced again
- Clearer insight
- New ideas
- A sense of community
Labyrinths beyond the studio
Schools, hospitals, churches, communities and companies all use labyrinths. Martha designs walks for team building, idea generation and managing conflict or change, as well as rituals, celebrations and community events, indoors or out.
Portable labyrinths
We build custom canvas labyrinths, rent out fabric ones for events, and sell small finger labyrinths you can trace by hand. Ask us.
Breathwalk
Breathwalk pairs specific breathing patterns with the rhythm of your steps and a focused, meditative attention. The exercises are designed to lift energy, steady mood and clear the mind, and they can be done on the labyrinth or anywhere you walk.
The yoga of awareness
Breath, movement, mantra and meditation in one practice, finishing with a gong relaxation. It is a practice to take home, and anyone who can breathe and follow along can do it.
What it is
Kundalini yoga brings the mind and body together through conscious breathing, postures, hand positions (mudra), eye focus, body locks, mantra and meditation. Each set of exercises is designed to balance the glandular system, strengthen the nervous system, expand lung capacity and build stamina and flexibility.
It is accessible at every age, level of fitness and body type, and you need no yoga experience to benefit from your first class. The style taught at Red Doors was brought to North America by Yogi Bhajan in 1969 and is now practised around the world.
Having studied many modalities over the years, Martha found Kundalini yoga the fastest and most effective route to balance, strength and wellbeing. She teaches as a KRI Level 2 and Yoga Alliance 500-hour teacher.
How it differs from other yoga
- Being present at every moment
- Every movement has its own focus and breath
- The teacher corrects with voice, never touch
- Cotton and natural fibres, not Lycra
- A long gong relaxation after the exercises
- Mantra and music throughout
What happens in a class
- Tuning in
A short chanted mantra to focus the mind and leave the day outside.
- Meditation
A meditation to settle the breath and set the tone for the class.
- Warm-up and kriya
Limbering exercises, then a kriya: a set of exercises with a theme. Like a recipe, done as written it gives a reliable result.
- Gong relaxation
Fifteen to twenty minutes lying down while the gong plays.
- Reflection and close
A moment to notice how you feel before you head home.
Before your first class
- Wait an hour or two after eating, and bring water.
- Wear loose, comfortable clothes, cotton if you have it.
- Tell the teacher about any back or knee injuries. If you have a medical condition, check with your doctor first.
- Listen to your body. It is not competitive: if something hurts, stop.
Kundalini yoga therapy
Yoga therapy applies Kundalini practices to a specific need, looking at it from the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual side together. Workshops and classes are available on vitality and on living with cancer or PTSD, alongside medical care, never instead of it. Ask Martha.
Not sure which one is for you?
They all lead to the same place. Pick the way in that suits you best.
Lie down and let the sound carry you. No experience, no effort, nothing to get right.
Find a date → If sitting still is hard Walking Meditation on LabyrinthsMeditation on your feet. The path does the thinking, so your mind can rest.
Find a date → If you want a practice to take home Kundalini YogaBreath, movement and mantra you can keep doing, with a gong relaxation to finish.
Find a date →Fees are in Hong Kong dollars and confirmed on the calendar at booking. Sound healing, labyrinth walking and Kundalini yoga are complementary wellness practices and are not a substitute for medical advice or treatment. See our cancellation guidelines.