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Paulie Zink - The Monkey King

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So we had some talk about Paul Grilley's new book

here recently. I decided to look more into this Paulie

Zink, one of Grilley's teachers. I found that he has a

set of videos which give instruction in Monkey Kung

Fu, of which Zink is suposedly a master and world

champion. If I was rich I would probably like to get the

whole set even though I am not studying any fighting

arts at this time. But one of the 8 videos is

specifically about Taoist Yoga, so I got it. Wow - this is

incredible. I can see why all these top yogis are excited

about this guy. I think Grilley comes from an Ashtanga

background and his book seems to kind of adapt some of these

Yin yoga ideas to a serious Ashtanga-based asana

practice. (See the current Yoga Journal for Grilley's

article on Yin Yoga). Sarah Powers is another Ashtanga

teacher who is into this. And I recently spoke with my

Ashtanga teacher who told me he had taken a Yin yoga class

in Hawaii with a guy who is also an Ashtanga

teacher. But anyway, the practice presented by Paulie Zink

on this video is a bit different and totally

amazing. There is a lot of emphasis on squatting and all

kinds of variations on squatting, including walking in

a squatting position. Also hopping like a frog.

Just like Ashtanga, I find the practice a bit beyond

me at this time, but it is something to work on.

Lots of cool ideas in this video. He does not explain

anything or talk about where this comes from (except to

say it is Chi Kung), he just demonstrates it in a

very straight-forward way. Unlike most other yoga

videos I have seen, there isn't even any background

music. (Please leave the music out of the videos!) The

squatting/walking reminded me of the last couple of times I saw

Michael Hedges perform - he walked around in a squatting

position (try it) while playing his flute and reciting the

Jaberwocky. Paulie Zink was his yoga teacher. Anyway, I got

this from a place called Martial Arts Gear:

<a href=http://www.martialartsgear.com/videos/panthervideos/china_files/76.shtml

target=new>http://www.martialartsgear.com/videos/panthervideos/china_files/76.sh\

tml</a><br>Check this out if you want to try something new,

something really challenging or just want to see a master

of a different type of serious physical yoga. I

would like to know more about this guy, in case anyone

has any info, like where does he teach?

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Terry,<br><br>Thanks for your post about Paulie

Zink. I'd been very curious about his video and now I'm

even more so. I take it that what he demonstrates on

the video is a bit different than what Paul Grilley

teaches . . . (more martial arts oriented

perhaps?)<br><br>FYI, I recently found out that Paulie Zink gave an

8-week seminar in Taoist Yoga at a Santa Monica Taoist

martial arts school a few months ago. I don't know where

he's located permanently though. <br><br>When I first

became interested in Taoist Yoga, I searched for stuff

about Mr. Zink with little success. It seems that

unlike many famous and infamous yogis, many martial arts

masters tend to be extremely secretive . . .

<br><br>Anyway, keep me posted if you discover anything more.

<br><br>All the best,<br>Robyn

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<I take it that what he demonstrates on the

video is a bit different than what Paul Grilley teaches

.. . . (more martial arts oriented

perhaps?)><br><br>Yes the practice he demonstrates is different from

what Paul Grilley details in his book (or in the Yoga

Journal article). Grilley seems to have adapted some

principles of Yin Yoga (which Paulie does not talk about in

the video) to standard yoga asana practice. What

Paulie demonstrates is all "asana practice" but the

postures are for the most part very different from

anything I have seen in Indian yoga. There is some overlap

and there is no reason why everything he does might

not be found in Indian yoga asana traditions, but it

just happens to be really different. I would not say

that it is "martial arts oriented" any more than

Ashtanga is. I have started to look into Qigong (ch'i

gung) recently. This is the "yoga" of Chinese martial

arts. It seems to be as vast as the Indian yoga

tradition. But so far I have not come across anything like

what is in Paulie's video although he subtitles it

"Ch'i Kung". It seems like one goal of all kinds of

physical discipline is to be able to use our

musculoskeletal systems to their full extent, to be able to move

anyway we can, like animals. All monkeys can do

everything any monkey can do, all cats can do everything any

cat can do. But humans...what is wrong with us? There

is a concept that there are actually many thousands

of yoga asanas, I guess every possible arrangement

of the skeleton would be an asana. So any system is

going to be limited. So it can be very valuable to see

a whole new perspective. The yoga in Zink's video

is both very different from Ashtanga and very

similar to it. Paulie seems like a very nice guy too. I

would definitely suggest getting the video if you are

at all interested.

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