About Amanda Lan

Martial artist. Health Qigong educator. Author. Systems thinker.

I have never fitted neatly into one box.

I have worked in textile design, clothing production, business, publishing, digital media, martial arts, and women’s wellbeing.

At first glance, these may seem like very different worlds.

To me, they have always been connected.

Each one asks the same questions:

How does something move?

Where is the tension?

What is no longer working?

How can we create better balance without making everything more complicated?

MapMeHealthy grew from that way of seeing.

Movement has been part of my life for more than three decades.

I trained in Shaolin Kung Fu and Sanda, taught students, ran martial arts classes, and helped build the International Kim-Loong Wushu Centre, which later evolved into 1MindBodyFitness.

For many years, I understood discipline through effort.

Train harder.

Push through.

Keep going.

That approach taught me strength, resilience, and focus.

It also taught me what happens when we stop listening.

After years of intense training, business pressure and trying to carry too many roles at once, my body eventually said no.

My teacher and husband, Dr. Jeff Lan—a Chinese medicine doctor and lifelong martial artist—gave me a simple instruction:

“Stop fighting. Start receiving.”

That was not easy advice for a Kung Fu woman.

But it changed the direction of my practice.

I began working more deeply with Yuan Qi Qigong, internal stillness, and slower restorative practice.

Instead of trying to conquer the body, I began noticing it.

Breath.

Rhythm.

Fatigue.

Tension.

The difference between genuine strength and running on determination.

Traditional practice can ask for more time than most modern women have available.

Women are often balancing work, family, ageing parents, changing hormones, financial responsibilities, and the endless little things nobody notices until they are not done.

So I began asking:

How do we carry the wisdom of a deeper practice into ordinary life?

Not three more hours of homework.

Not another demanding wellness routine.

Something small enough to use, but meaningful enough to matter.

That question became part of the foundation of BalanceHER and, later, MapMeHealthy.

BalanceHER began with a simple recognition:

Women do not need another system telling them to try harder.

We need ways to understand our bodies through different stages of life—and practical tools that respect our time, energy and lived experience.

The work brings together:

• • Women-centred Qigong
  • Martial alignment and body awareness
  • Breath and grounding
  • Nourishment and daily rhythm
  • Restorative movement
  • Traditional principles translated carefully for modern life
  • Permission to practise without perfection

MapMeHealthy is where this work becomes easier to explore online.

Long before MapMeHealthy, I worked in textile and clothing design.

My professional career included Swiss-German textile training, design-room leadership, factory production, sourcing, worker relations, publishing, branding and digital development.

That background still shapes how I build wellbeing systems.

A good design should make something easier to understand and use.

A good practice should do the same.

I do not believe in adding complexity simply to make something appear more impressive.

The best systems create structure without trapping the person inside them.

This is why MapMeHealthy is organised through the Three Regions of the Body Map.

It gives people a simple place to begin.

My work draws from traditional Kung Fu martial arts, Health Qigong, Tai Chi, Yuan Qi practice and Chinese medicine-informed principles.

These traditions deserve respect.

They should not be stripped of context simply because wellness trends need new content.

At the same time, they should not be made so mysterious that ordinary people feel excluded.

My role is to help create a bridge.

I teach what has been tested through practice, teaching and lived experience.

Where modern research is relevant, it can add context.

Where a principle comes from tradition, it should be described honestly as tradition.

Where something is based on personal or teaching experience, I say so.

We do not need to pretend that every old idea is scientific.

We also do not need to throw away generations of practical observation simply because it was expressed in a different language.

BalanceHER and MapMeHealthy did not grow in isolation.

The work has been informed by decades of teaching:

• • Martial arts and Qigong students
  • Women navigating different stages of life
  • Community groups in the Western Cape
  • Mothers, elders and young women
  • Local and international Health Qigong exchanges
  • People who needed practices that could fit into real life

Listening has always been part of the curriculum.

People do not arrive as blank bodies waiting to be instructed.

They arrive with histories, responsibilities, cultures, strengths and limits.

The practice must meet the person.

Not the other way around.

Amanda’s work also includes:

• • The BalanceHER Book
  • Women’s wellness workshops and educational resources
  • Health Qigong teaching and coach development
  • Martial arts and internal arts education through 1MindBodyFitness
  • Articles, interviews and public education
  • Publishing and knowledge design
  • Creative strategy and mentorship through Zen Deezign
  • Community initiatives through the Shaolin Café ecosystem

Different projects.

One underlying principle:

Make knowledge practical, humane and useful.

I am based in Cape Town, South Africa.

My work has travelled through teaching, writing, online education, Health Qigong relationships and the many people who have carried the practices back into their own homes and communities.

But MapMeHealthy does not ask you to join a movement or adopt an identity.

It simply offers a place to begin listening again.

I believe:

Strength does not always need force.

Rest is not a reward for exhaustion.

Ageing is not a failure.

Food should not become a punishment.

Women are not badly designed.

And perfection is terribly overrated.

The body is always giving us information.

Our work is to become quiet enough to hear it.

“It is in our flaws that we find strength—and in our balance that we find radiance.”

— Amanda Lan

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