Gong Practitioner Training
Where Sound Becomes TransformationScience of Sound
Explore the science of vibration and resonance as tools for transformation
Art of Playing
Learn basic and advanced playing techniques to develop your unique gong-playing style
Client Care
Discover how to prepare, ground, and create a nurturing environment for healing
Mentorship
Small groups, mentorship and expert guidance foster a supportive journey
CMA-Accredited One-Year Training in the Art & Science of Gong Sound Healing
About the Course
This certificated Gong Practitioner Training Course is a one-year programme delivered over five weekends, accredited by the College of Sound Healing, a CMA registered professional association.
Created in 2010 by Sheila Whittaker, Gong Master and Head Tutor for the College of Sound Healing, it remains one of the most in-depth courses in the U.K. and beyond.
It offers the knowledge, confidence, and practical skills to become a qualified Gong Practitioner, blending ancient wisdom with modern therapeutic approaches to sound.
Led by Aleka, whose personal healing journey and connection to the Sheila Whittaker lineage infuse the course with warmth, compassion, and gentle wisdom in a safe, nurturing space.
A Transformative Journey
The gong is a portal to healing and expanded awareness. Through practice and deep listening, you will learn to harness sound for personal and planetary transformation.
A heart-centred space for an embodied journey of transformation with the gong.
The Setting
Just off the A303 and accessible by train from London – Waterloo to Sherborne and from London – Paddington and Bristol to Castle Cary, The Same Roots Collective is a nurturing and tranquil setting boasting an indoor heated swimming pool, log fire in winter, beautiful gardens, and lovely walks in the countryside straight from the door.
This calm, heart-centred place provides an ideal environment for the Gong Practitioner Training Course© – a training that goes beyond acquiring knowledge and mastering technique, into an embodied journey of healing and transformation with the gong.
Benefits of Small Group Size
With teaching groups limited to just 12 participants, you benefit from a genuinely personal learning experience. The intimate group size allows for attentive guidance and one-to-one support during the in-person weekends, creating a safe and connected learning environment. With a small group, you have plenty of space to ask questions, deepen your practice, and receive meaningful, personalised feedback, helping you grow in skill and confidence.
Supervised Practice & Mentorship
You’ll benefit from expert tuition and supervised practice throughout each training weekend, along with continued mentorship between sessions through your case studies. This ongoing support helps you integrate what you learn in real time to refine your techniques and build an authentic connection with the gong. This nurturing approach gives you the space to grow confidently and develop your own distinctive gong-playing style.
Professional Development & Ethical Practice
Ethics and professional development are woven throughout the course, supported by case studies and personal practice between weekends. The case studies give you the opportunity to develop your skills in a sustainable way over the course of a year of training, as you receive ongoing mentorship and build real experience with clients.
By the end of the training, you’ll have a solid foundation of practical insight and knowledge so you are fully prepared to step into your role as a professional Gong Practitioner.
The CoSH Code of Conduct ensures you have a practical framework for ethical practice, ensuring you hold space for clients with integrity and mindful care.
Lineage & Tradition
This training follows the respected lineage of Sheila Whittaker, a pioneer in the modern gong community known for her depth of knowledge, musical mastery, and dedication to sound as a therapeutic art. Sheila’s work is grounded in the teachings of Don Conreaux, one of the original students of Yogi Bhajan and a key figure in bringing gong healing to the West.
Sheila has spent more than two decades teaching the gong as a powerful tool for transformation. She has trained tutors across the UK and Ireland, written seminal books on gong work, and recorded widely respected gong albums. Her teachings form the foundation of the College’s gong training and continue to shape the standard of excellence within the field.
This lineage ensures your learning is grounded in authentic tradition, integrity, and the highest standard of gong education available today.
What You Will Learn
Over the course of five weekends, you will explore:
The history and sacred origins of the gong.
Playing techniques and developing your personal style.
Creating a healing space and caring for clients.
The art of giving gong baths for individuals and groups.
The science of sound, vibration, and consciousness.
Practitioner ethics and professional development.
If you’d like to explore whether the Gong Practitioner Training is the right fit for you, I warmly invite you to book a free, no-obligation online meeting. This is a relaxed space to discuss your needs, intentions, and any questions you may have about the training, schedule, or commitments involved. Together, we’ll look at where you are on your journey and whether this training will support your personal and professional goals.
Course Curriculum
This one-year Gong Practitioner Training offers a depth and breadth of learning that far exceeds shorter courses or weekend introductions. Over a year of learning and supervised practice, students develop not only technical ability, but genuine mastery through mentorship and real client experience.
Weekend 1 – Introduction To The Gong
Our first weekend lays the foundation for your gong journey. This weekend is an experiential initiation – a chance to listen deeply, connect with the gong’s vibration, and begin to develop your own relationship with this powerful instrument. After the first weekend, you’ll need to choose and obtain your gong so you can continue practising the basic techniques, and spend time attuning to your gong’s sound and energy.
More Details
What you will learn:
- Explore the history and background of the gong, and its significance in modern therapeutic application.
- Learn about the different types of gongs – their qualities and effects on the listener.
- Learn basic playing techniques including hung and walking gong styles.
- Learn basic techniques for working with mallets, strikers, and the flumey.
- Experience receiving and giving a gong bath to understand the gong’s effects on body, mind, and spirit.
- Learn how to approach and care for the gong.
- If you haven’t already purchased a gong, you’ll be supported in choosing a gong that suits your needs and circumstances.
Weekend 2 – Deepening Your Practice
The second weekend is about exploring the gong as a therapeutic healing instrument. This weekend is focused on preparing you to use the gong for individual therapy sessions for family and friends. After this weekend you will be expected to become a student member of the College of Sound Healing so you can get student insurance cover and begin your case study work. You’ll also receive a gong bath to experience allowing, have supervised practice, and continue to hone your playing techniques.
More Details
What you will learn:
- Explore advanced playing methods – hung gong and walking gong techniques.
- Build your playing repertoire. by developing confidence with mallets, strikers, and the flumey.
- Work with harmonics, sound building, silence, and flow to develop your unique gong playing style.
- Dive more deeply into the different types of gongs and their unique qualities.
- Explore how to open yourself as a channel for the gong.
- Learn about other complementary instruments used in the art of giving a gong bath.
- Practice giving a gong bath for an individual and be assessed in basic playing techniques.
- Learn The Universal Greeting from the lineage of Don Conreaux and Sheila Whittaker.
Weekend 3 – Expanding Awareness & Group Work
In the third weekend, you’ll lean how to work with Himalayan singing bowls and the conch shell. You’ll explore how to prepare a scared space, how to build and channel sound, develop deep listening skills and take the first steps into giving a group gong bath, building confidence in holding space for multiple people. Continuing to work with one-to-one case studies, after this weekend you will be expected to organise a group gong bath for your community to submit as a case study. You’ll asked to write a 2000-word essay on an esoteric sound-related subject of your choice (due 1 month before graduation), cultivating your subject knowledge and expertise.
More Details
What you will learn:
- Experience total surrender by receiving a gong bath.
- Introduction to Himalayan singing bowls – how to work therapeutically for individual and group work.
- Create sacred space, exploring different practices for grounding and protection.
- Practice building up sound and becoming a hollow bone for the gong to work through you.
- Develop deep listening skills and channelling.
- Explore the gong as a personal tool for transformation – part 1.
- Practice giving a group gong bath, building confidence in holding space for multiple people.
- Give a supervised gong therapy treatment on another student and demonstrate the Universal Greeting.
Weekend 4 – Deepening Intuition & Group Facilitation
In the forth weekend, we continue to deepen your confidence and sensitivity as a practitioner, with an emphasis on professional development, the role of service in this work, and ethical practice. This weekend focuses on developing your subtle awareness, learning to sense the gong space, and strengthening your intuition as you learn to work with energy. You’ll also step into giving a solo group gong bath and building the skills needed to hold and guide a larger energetic field. There is a practical assessment where you’re asked to make a presentation to the group on a sound therapy topic of your choice. This harnesses your ability to speak as a subject-matter expert and develops your communication skills.
More Details
.What you will learn:
- Introduction to working with the voice for individual and group sound healing using toning and overtoning practices.
- Explore the basics of sacred geometry and how it relates to the science of sound healing.
- Learn about the conch shell – it’s history as an ancient sound healing instrument and how to how to work it.
- Explore the science of working with subtle energy and sound.
- Learn to sense into the gong space, develop awareness and strengthen intuition.
- Explore the gong as a personal tool for transformation – part 2.
- Develop mindful client care and a practical framework for sound healing ethics and code of conduct.
- Reflect on the role of service within this work and impact on individual and planetary transformation.
- Develop your presentation skills by giving a group talk on a sound healing related topic.
Weekend 5 – Bringing It All Together & Graduation
The final weekend is a time of integration, reflection, and celebration. We begin with a review of weekends 1–4, sharing insights and discussing progress as you prepare to complete your training. You’ll be introduced to the gong in performance and sacred tone improvisation. You’ll explore the role of astrology in sound healing and the meet the planet gongs. The weekend concludes with a Graduation Ceremony, where certificates are awarded and ongoing after-course support is outlined to help you confidently step forward as a Gong Practitioner.
More Details
What you will learn:
- Learn new practices including the gong in performance and sacred tone improvisation.
- Explore the influence of astrology in sound healing with the gong and learn about the planet gongs.
- Prepare to set up your therapeutic practice – thing to consider, marketing, ongoing tutor and peer support.
- Discuss CPD and opportunities for continuing your professional development.
- Graduation Ceremony
Certification Requirements
To graduate, participants complete a comprehensive, practice-based pathway that ensures they are confident, ethical, and fully prepared to work professionally. This level of commitment and support creates practitioners who have embodied experience and real-world competency – not just theoretical knowledge.
More Details
To graduate at weekend 5, participants must :
- Complete 36 case studies, documented in paper form. No more than three treatments per client/case study, so at least 12 different clients are needed. After weekend 2, finished case studies are to be submitted before each training weekend in batches, to allow for giving feedback. All case studies must be completed and submitted at least 1 month prior to graduation weekend.
- Submit a 2000-word thesis on an esoteric sound-related subject of their choice, to be completed and submitted by weekend 4.
- Arrange and give a group gong bath solo. Write and submit a report at least one month before weekend 5.
- Give a short (7-10 minute presentation) the the group at weekend 4.
- Know the Universal Greeting and associated hand movements by heart.
- Have an awareness of Gong Master and Sound Healing practise Ethics/Code of Conduct.
- Have attended all Levels 1 – 4 weekend sessions and the Graduation Weekend.
- Own or have use of an appropriate high quality gong, mallets and associated tools and instruments.
- Complete two one day Additional Sound Healing Workshops or one two day Additional Sound Healing Workshop offered by the College of Sound Healing.
This training goes beyond technique – it’s an inner journey of healing and self-discovery. Through sound, stillness, and guided reflection, you’ll deepen your connection to your own intuition, learning to hold space for others with presence and care.
Why Train With Us?
The College offers over two decades of excellence in sound therapy education, with tutors dedicated to both spiritual depth and professional integrity.
The one-year Gong Practitioner Training offers a depth and breadth of learning that far exceeds shorter courses or weekend introductions. Over five weekends, students develop not only technical ability, but genuine mastery through personal practice, supervised sessions, mentorship, and real client experience. Our approach combines:
Expert tuition and supervised practice
Supportive small group learning
Connection to a network of sound healers across the UK and beyond
The result is a training that produces skilled, grounded, and authentic Gong Practitioners, fully prepared to offer safe, powerful, and transformative sound healing sessions.
Step Onto Your Path As Gong Practitioner
Bring healing, harmony, and transformation through the ancient power of sound
Upcoming Trainings
28-29
Nov 2026
Gong Practitioner Training
West Dorset
BA22 9QU
Weekend 1 – 28 & 29 Nov 2026
Weekend 2 – 27 & 28 Feb 2027
Weekend 3 – 22 & 23 May 2027
Weekend 4 – 25 & 26 Sept 2027
Weekend 5 – 27 & 28 Nov 2027
20-21
March 2027
Gong Practitioner Training
West Dorset
BA22 9QU
Weekend 1 – 20 & 21 March 2027
Weekend 2 – 12 & 13 June 2027
Weekend 3 – 11 & 12 Sept 2027
Weekend 4 – 4 & 5 December 2027
Weekend 5 – 4 & 5 March 2028
9-10
Oct 2027
Gong Practitioner Training
West Dorset
BA22 9QU
Weekend 1 – 23 & 24 Oct 2027
Weekend 2 – 22 & 23 Jan 2028
Weekend 3 – 29 & 30 April 2028
Weekend 4 – 8 & 9 July 2028
Weekend 5 – 7 & 8 Oct 2028