Kit Shum

I was fortunate to record two sound baths from Kit Shum (ig: @kitshumartstherapist) a few weeks ago. I had contacted her before the summer and our schedules finally aligned at the end of August.

Kit is an expressive arts therapist and uses dance and visual arts to help people recover from mental and physical pain. She says most of the time, of our physical pain is a result of our mental pain so by healing the mind, the body will soon follow. Her journey began in her mid20s when she was seeking a way to come to terms with a traumatic childhood and found out about expressive arts therapy as a way to heal herself. She pursued it further in University and now helps thousands of others overcome their physical and mental ailments.

Her interest in singing bowls started about 10 years ago. She was working as a flight attendant and during a stopover in Nepal she went to see a lady for her first sound bath. She was so amazed how it made her feel and wanted to bring it to Hong Kong. At that time, the sound bath scene was just beginning to take root. She says people respond better to singing bowls as a means to meditation because it gives them something to focus on and can help stop the inner dialog.

Nowadays, along with her therapy practice, she and her students go to community centers and perform sound baths for the underprivileged as a way of introducing more people to the sound bath experience. She says that the sound baths are becoming more popular in the local community and is now more accessible by the different social levels in HK.

Kit said she was a student of Paul Yip and that was why she wanted to do these recordings. We recorded in her space in Jordon. Unfortunately that day there was construction just down the hall from her space (of course, right?) so these will be a little challenging, but it worked for me so it should work for you too.

The way we were positioned in the room, one side can hear more of the street traffic, one side was the hallway. Lots of 'character' in these tracks, but despite all these noises, it still got me there. She admits she was nervous in the beginning, playing faster than usual, but as she settled in, the slower tempo began to bring you down. Her style is slow and composed, much like Paul’s. I like how she strikes two bowls at the end of a phrase. We still have one more session to do. Looking forward to it.