I want to write this with as much humility as I can.
Because influence is a strange thing to talk about.
You don’t always realise you’re having it while it’s happening.
When I recovered from my spinal injury, I went looking for Yin.
Not Yin-Yang.
Not a little Yin before a stronger practice.
Not Yin squeezed into the last fifteen minutes of a class.
Just Yin.
And at the time, that was surprisingly difficult for me to find in Karachi.
There was plenty of Yang around me.
And perhaps that was exactly why I was looking for Yin.
My life already had enough doing.
Enough pushing.
Enough holding everything together.
I didn’t need another practice asking me to do more.
I needed something to balance all that Yang.
So eventually, I decided to create the class I had been looking for.
A pure Yin class.
I studied.
And kept studying.
I taught.
And kept learning how to teach.
I experimented with how I could make the experience feel like mine.
The mandalas.
The candles.
The darkness.
The music.
The little rituals.
Then came Acu-Yin.
Myo-Yin.
Wall-Yin
And Finally Red Light Yin!!
Different ways of bringing together the things I was studying with the practice I loved.
Slowly, I started noticing something.
People were paying attention.
Students came.
Teachers came.
Some came simply to experience the practice.
Some came because they wanted to understand what I was doing differently.
And then I started seeing pieces of what I was creating appearing elsewhere.
Sometimes that made me smile.
There is something incredibly special about watching an idea travel beyond you.
A feather in my cap?
I’d be lying if I said it didn’t sometimes feel like one.
But it also made me think.
A lot.
Because there is a difference between being inspired by someone’s work and simply reproducing it.
And perhaps that difference comes down to something yoga has been trying to teach us all along.
YOGA WAS NEVER JUST THE POSE
We talk so much about teaching yoga.
But what about practising it?
Satya. Truthfulness.
Asteya. Non-stealing.
These aren’t instructions for what shape our bodies should make on a mat.
They’re part of how we are asked to live.
And I think they matter just as much when nobody is watching.
Maybe especially then.
If someone’s work inspires you, beautiful.
Let it inspire you to study.
To train.
To become curious.
To find your own teachers.
To understand why something is being done rather than simply repeating what you saw someone else do.
And then let all of that move through you.
Your experience.
Your education.
Your voice.
Your truth.
Because surely that is where teaching becomes interesting.
I DON’T WANT TO OWN YIN
I couldn’t even if I wanted to.
Yin Yoga was here before my class.
The practices and philosophies that inform what I teach certainly did not begin with me.
I am a student of teachers who were students of teachers.
I have borrowed knowledge, received knowledge and been shaped by every room in which I have practised.
That deserves acknowledgement too.
So this isn’t about ownership.
It’s about integrity.
About knowing the difference between learning from someone and trying to become them.
About respecting the work enough to do your own.
And about remembering that teaching a practice carries responsibility.
Training matters.
Study matters.
Context matters.
Knowing what you don’t know matters.
MAYBE THIS IS WHAT INFLUENCE REALLY IS
When I first went looking for a pure Yin class in Karachi, I wasn’t trying to influence a city.
I was looking for something I needed myself.
So I created it.
And somewhere along the way, I watched the appetite for Yin grow around me.
That makes me incredibly proud.
But perhaps the part I’m proudest of isn’t seeing similar classes, ideas or experiences appearing around the city.
It’s knowing why I began.
Because there was already enough Yang around me.
And I needed Yin.
So I studied it.
I practised it.
I taught it.
And I continue to study it.
Because if there is one thing yoga keeps reminding me, it is this:
Your practice isn’t only visible in what you create.
It’s visible in how you create it.