Founder of BalanceHER
About Amanda Lan
A lifetime of movement, learning and making things useful
I have never fitted neatly into one professional box.
My life has moved through textile design, factory management, business, publishing, digital media, Kung Fu, Qigong, teaching and women’s wellbeing.
BalanceHER grew where these different parts of my life met.
It brings together ancient movement knowledge, practical body awareness and the reality that most women do not have three spare hours a day to work on themselves.
Founder of BalanceHER
I knew how to push. I had to learn how to listen.
For much of my life, movement meant discipline, stamina and doing more.
I trained in Shaolin Kung Fu and Sanda.
I worked in demanding creative and business environments.
I raised a family, taught students, built programmes and kept moving—often long after my body had started asking for something different.
More than 30 years ago, I was introduced to Yuan Qi Qigong by Lin Xiaomei, an elder from Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
It was unlike the faster, more external movement I knew.
The practice valued stillness.
Conservation.
Natural breath.
The lower centre.
And the ability to recognise when the body needed to gather energy rather than spend more of it.
That knowledge stayed with me.
FROM LONG ROUTINES TO REAL LIFER
Beautiful practice. Impossible timetable.
Traditional Yuan Qi Qigong routines could take several hours.
That depth was valuable—but the timetable was not realistic for most modern women.
Women were working.
Raising children.
Looking after parents.
Running homes and businesses.
Managing hormonal changes.
And often placing themselves at the very bottom of the list.
I began exploring how the deeper principles could be brought into ordinary life without stripping away their meaning.
A grounding rhythm.
A conscious breath.
A moment of Inner Silence.
A small movement before responding.
A 90-second pause before the day carried you away again.
Over more than 25 years of teaching and practice, these ideas grew into Harmony Flow Wellness Practices and the wider BalanceHER programme.
THE EXPERIENCE BEHIND THE WORK
My approach is informed by more than four decades of movement, teaching, business and creative practice.
My martial arts and Qigong experience includes:
- 7th Dan Shaolin Kung Fu;
- 5th Dan International Health Qigong Technical Coach;
- certified Health Qigong instructor through the Chinese Health Qigong Association;
- Vice President of the South African Health Qigong Association;
- South African facilitator for BRICS Health Qigong activities;
- co-founder of the International Kim-Loong Wushu Centre, which developed into 1MindBodyFitness;
- and decades of teaching Kung Fu, Sanda, Tai Chi, Qigong and internal movement practices.
I am also the author of The BalanceHER Journey and the creator of Harmony Flow Wellness Practices and MapMeHealthy.
These qualifications matter.
But BalanceHER was not created from certificates alone.
It was shaped through training, teaching, motherhood, business, personal experience and years of listening to women describe what it actually feels like to live inside a changing body.
WHAT MAKES MY APPROACH DIFFERENT
I teach what can live outside the training hall
A practice is only useful when a woman can remember it when she needs it.
Not only when the room is quiet.
Not only when she is wearing exercise clothes.
Not only when she has completed an hour-long routine.
BalanceHER practices are designed to move into daily life.
Feel your feet before entering a difficult conversation.
Take one breath before saying yes.
Release your jaw while waiting in traffic.
Stamp when your thoughts have rushed ahead of the rest of you.
Become quiet before carrying one more thing that may not be yours to carry.
The practice is not separate from life.
Life is where we practise.
MOVEMENT IS ONE PART OF THE STORY
My work has always crossed disciplines
Before BalanceHER, I spent decades in textile design, clothing production, factory management, branding, publishing and business development.
I later taught myself web design, digital publishing, multimedia production and the online systems needed to bring knowledge to a wider audience.
That background affects how I create wellness programmes.
I do not only think about the movement.
I think about:
- how people understand information;
- how a programme is structured;
- how knowledge moves from a book into practice;
- how visual design affects learning;
- how women with limited time find a useful starting point;
- and how complex ideas can be made approachable without making them empty.
BalanceHER is one expression of that larger body of work.
WHERE MY FULL STORY LIVES
More than one path. Still one person.
Before BalanceHER, I spent decades in textile design, clothing production, factory management, branding, publishing and business development.
This page focuses on the experience behind BalanceHER.
My wider professional journey includes textile and digital design, creative strategy, knowledge design, publishing, entrepreneurship, multimedia work, martial arts education and programme development.
That complete body of work lives at Zen Deezign.
Zen Deezign is the personal home of my multidisciplinary work, ideas and creative strategy.
Explore Amanda’s Work at Zen Deezign
The Shaolin Café Collective is the wider ecosystem connecting our publishing, educational, community and movement-based projects.
It is where the different streams meet and where much of our long-form writing and shared knowledge continues.
Visit the Shaolin Café Collective
WHAT GUIDES THE WORK
I believe knowledge should be useful.
It should be shared.
Its roots should remain visible.
Traditional practices should not be dressed in false science simply to make them sound credible.
Modern research should be respected without pretending it has already answered every question.
Women should not be treated as broken bodies waiting to be corrected.
And wellness should never become another impossible standard to fail.
BalanceHER is my way of bringing those beliefs into practice.
BOOKS, INTERVIEWS AND TEACHING
My published and recorded work includes:
- The BalanceHER Journey;
- books and publications developed through the Shaolin Café Collective;
- radio conversations on Voice of the Cape and Bush Radio;
- Health Qigong teaching and international presentations;
- workshops for women and community groups;
- and online guidance through BalanceHER and MapMeHealthy.
FINAL WORD
“Your body is not a problem to solve. It is a system to listen to.”
Amanda Lan
I do not promise perfect balance.
Balance moves.
Bodies change.
Life interrupts.
The practice is learning how to return.