How It All Got Started (with Me and the Gongs)
People often ask me:
“How did you get into this?”
They’re curious. And I get it.
I tell them I play gongs for people — they lie down, I play, and something happens. Something deep.
Still, the question always comes:
“How did this begin?”
Here’s my answer.
It was 2005.
I was living in Austin, Texas and leading a meditation group called The Joy Experience. One day, I went to a yoga class that several of my clients had raved about. The class itself was fine — nothing life-changing.
But then came savasana.
I laid down. Silence.
Then suddenly — this sound.
Not music. Not a bell. Something deeper. Richer.
A thunderous shimmer filled the room.
A gong.
I had never heard anything like it.
But more than that, it did something to me.
The sound reached into me — beyond thought, beyond breath. It softened everything. I felt myself dissolve into some other dimension. Blissful. Still. Alive.
When it ended, I said — maybe out loud, maybe just in my mind —
“I have got to get into this.”
A few months later, I attended a half-day workshop with the same yoga teacher. Really, he just played the gongs for hours while we lay and listened. That was enough. I knew:
Someday, I’m going to get a gong. I’m going to play.
But there was a problem.
Gongs are big. And I was a nomad.
By 2007, I was in Portland.
In 2008, Paris.
2009, Basel.
2012, San Francisco.
2014, a college town in Oregon.
I didn’t have a place to put a gong — or a life that could hold one.
Eventually, I forgot all about it.
Then came 2016.
That year, everything changed.
My daughter was born.
My father passed away.
A business I had poured myself into — and all my savings — collapsed.
The startup failed. I was back at zero.
But strangely, I was… happy.
For the first time in years, I had nothing on the horizon. No big plan. No pressure. I was taking care of a baby, supporting my wife in grad school, and doing what I had always taught others to do:
I was doing nothing.
And I was at peace.
Then came a January morning in 2017.
I woke up and the very first thought was:
“I could play gongs now.”
Thirty minutes later, I got an email from my stepmother.
It said I was going to receive some unexpected money — from my father’s life insurance.
My immediate thought?
“There’s the money for the gongs.”
I began researching.
So much had changed since that yoga class in 2005.
Now there were dozens of gongs — different makers, different styles.
They were expensive. But I didn’t care. I was committed.
Eventually, I found myself — as we all do — on Amazon.
And that’s when I noticed something strange.
A certain person kept leaving reviews on high-end gongs.
Not just any reviews — beautiful ones.
Detailed. Precise. Eloquent.
There was something in his words that resonated with me — like we shared a similar sense of sound, of intention, of subtlety.
He always signed his name:
M. Conners
Suddenly it became clear.
I wasn’t just looking for a gong.
I was looking for him.
I typed into the search bar:
“M. Conners gong”
There he was — a website: The Vegas Gong Yogi.
I clicked, found his contact page, and sent him a message.
“Are you the M. Conners from Amazon?” I asked. “If so, would you spare an hour to help me choose my first gong?”
He replied right away. Yes, he was. And yes, he’d love to talk.
We scheduled half an hour.
We talked for two.
He had a room full of gongs — maybe 20 or more.
At one point, I asked:
“If your house were on fire and you could only save one, which would it be?”
He didn’t hesitate.
“The 40-inch Wu Xing,” he said.
It was made by Broder Oetken, the legendary German gong maker, and sold by Meinl.
“That’s the one,” I replied.
“But actually… let’s make it two.”
After some back and forth, I decided on a pair: the 40-inch Wu Xing and the 36-inch version, its smaller sibling.
I ordered them from Gongs Unlimited — an incredible online store with a great team: kind, knowledgeable, generous.
A few weeks later, the gongs arrived.
I assembled the stand. Hung the gongs.
Picked up the mallets.
And played — for the very first time.
Not just any gong.
My gong.
The very first gong I ever played… was mine.
And just like that, I was transported.
The room disappeared.
Time melted.
I felt something beyond words — like coming home to a place I had always known but forgotten.
It was love at first play.
I Had No Plans to Share It
At first, I thought the gongs were just for me.
A private joy. A secret practice.
I had no plans to perform, no urge to teach, no thought of inviting others.
But Matthew — M. Conners — had said something that stuck with me:
“You’re going to end up sharing this.”
Two days later, he was right.
A friend came by. I asked him to lie down.
I had no training, no method, no plan — just a feeling.
So I started playing, using a structure I remembered from Classical Indian music. A slow unfolding.
When I finished, he opened his eyes and stared at me, stunned.
The look on his face told me everything.
Something had happened.
The next day, my friend Brianne visited. I played for her too.
She sat up afterward and said:
“That was like a massage… times ten.”
(I still quote that line on my posters today.)
That was the moment.
I knew I had to share this.
Not someday. Not after training. Now.
The Underground Apprenticeship
Within two weeks, I offered my first public gong bath.
No website. No Facebook. No posters. No business cards.
Just word of mouth. Friends. Friends of friends.
For the next year and a half, I played twice a week in a small college town in Oregon.
No set fee — donation-based.
It wasn’t about money.
It was about learning.
I called it “my underground period of apprenticeship.”
Eventually, I made a poster.
And everything changed.
Sessions filled up. We had waiting lists.
All in a town most people haven’t heard of.
But for me, none of that was the point.
The Point Was Always the Sound
This project was never about business.
It wasn’t about personal branding, or even healing in the conventional sense.
For me, it was — and still is — about sound.
Exploring it. Being in it. Following it.
I make journeys in sound, for myself… and for others.
If people come, great.
If not, I’ll still be playing.
Because the sound itself is enough.
And if it’s good — really good — the rest takes care of itself.
It just so happens… people do come.
Maybe you will too. 🙂