[1] Having studied xingyiquan with Guo Yunshen in his childhood,[2] Wang Xiangzhai travelled China, meeting and comparing skills with masters of various styles of kung fu.

[2] In the mid-1920s, he came to the conclusion that xingyiquan students put too much emphasis on complex patterns of movement (outer form "xing"), while he believed in the prevalent importance of the development of the mind in order to boost physical martial art skills.

In the 1940s one of Wang Xiangzhai's students wrote an article about his "school" and named it "dachengquan" (大成拳), which means "great achievement boxing".

Han Xingqiao, who was formally adopted by Wang as a son and lived with him for 15 years, was studying One Finger tui na with Qian Yantang, a famous scholar and doctor.

It was here that Qian introduced the idea that further exploration of zhan zhuang, a standing practice first and most foundationally taught by Wang's uncle and teacher Guo Yousheng, might be fundamental to the development of yiquan.

Later, the basic eight postures were refined into ju, bao, peng, tui, an, hua, ti and closing with Jia So Su.

Yiquan is also set apart from other eastern martial arts in that traditional concepts like qi, meridians, dantian etc., are omitted, the reason being that understanding one's true nature happens in the present, and that preconceptions block this process.

Yiquan is a distillation of the internal aspects at the core of all arts that Wang was exposed to, including Fujian White Crane, tai chi, baguazhang, and liuhebafa.

[citation needed] Other arts as well, such as the swimming dragon posture, present in shuai jiao, is transformed through feeling, understanding, and the condition of the practitioner.

Different schools practice some degree of footwork — mocabu (Chinese: 摩擦步; pinyin: mócābù), which means "friction step" and often abbreviated as bufa (Chinese: 步法; pinyin: bùfǎ) or "stepping method" — and different movements leading towards free expression of the collected state.