Sep 3, 2026 · 28 min · 9 segments
What if improving your golf game and your movement doesn't always require doing more? In this episode of the Yoga for Golf® Podcast, we're exploring Yin Yoga: a surprisingly modern style of yoga that…
And some of the philosophical ideas associated with yin yoga reach back centuries.
Its story begins not with one ancient yogi in India, but with a martial artist in the United States named Polly Zink.
Zink began studying martial arts as a young man and eventually became known for his practice and teaching of Taoist yoga.
His approach combined elements of Taoist philosophy, martial arts, breathing practices, and long-held floor postures.
And one of his students would eventually take particular interest in those long, relatively passive poses.
Grilley was already teaching yoga when he encountered Zink's approach in the late 1980s.
At the time, much of the yoga gaining popularity in the United States was relatively active.
Think back to the styles that we've already explored Iyengar emphasized detailed alignment and muscular engagement.
Against that backdrop, Zink's long-held floor poses offered something dramatically different.
Instead of constantly engaging the muscles and moving through sequences, practitioners could remain relatively still.
But, and this is important, the yin yoga that Grilly would eventually teach was not simply a copy of Pauli Zink's complete Taoist yoga system.
Grilly focused particularly on the long-held, floor-based portion of the practice.
Over time, he combined that influence with his own interests in anatomy and with ideas he encountered in through the work of Dr. Hiroshi Modoyama, a Japanese scholar and spiritual teacher whose work explored both traditional concepts of energy and Western approaches to the body.
And some of the philosophical ideas associated with yin yoga reach back centuries.
Its story begins not with one ancient yogi in India, but with a martial artist in the United States named Polly Zink.
Zink began studying martial arts as a young man and eventually became known for his practice and teaching of Taoist yoga.
His approach combined elements of Taoist philosophy, martial arts, breathing practices, and long-held floor postures.
And one of his students would eventually take particular interest in those long, relatively passive poses.
Grilley was already teaching yoga when he encountered Zink's approach in the late 1980s.
At the time, much of the yoga gaining popularity in the United States was relatively active.
Think back to the styles that we've already explored Iyengar emphasized detailed alignment and muscular engagement.
Against that backdrop, Zink's long-held floor poses offered something dramatically different.
Instead of constantly engaging the muscles and moving through sequences, practitioners could remain relatively still.
But, and this is important, the yin yoga that Grilly would eventually teach was not simply a copy of Pauli Zink's complete Taoist yoga system.
Grilly focused particularly on the long-held, floor-based portion of the practice.
Over time, he combined that influence with his own interests in anatomy and with ideas he encountered in through the work of Dr. Hiroshi Modoyama, a Japanese scholar and spiritual teacher whose work explored both traditional concepts of energy and Western approaches to the body.
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