Gao Yisheng was born in Dazhuangzi Village, Dashan Township, Wudi County, Shandong province, China in 1866.

During his childhood his family fortune was lost so they moved to Wu Ching County, Shaogao township in Hebei province to find employment.

When he was young his leg was broken by a mule cart and the bone was set incorrectly so Gao walked with a cane the rest of his life.

In 1892 when Gao was twenty-six years old he began his study of baguazhang with Dong Haichuan’s student Sung Zhangjun (Song Changrong).

In 1911 he returned to his home village in Shandong province at the age of forty–five at which time he started teaching his own Gao-style baguazhang.

Around 1912 Gao claimed he met Song Yiren, a Taoist from Guanghua Mountain who gave him the houtian sets.

Han Muxia, grand-student of Cheng Tinghua and friend of Zhou Yuxiang's had 48 straight line baguazhang sets almost identical to Gao's.

Based on the above facts, it is possible that Gao may have standardized 48 of the houtian from his experience with Zhou, Cheng and Li Cunyi then rounded out the total number to 64 in accordance with well-known Daoist cosmology.

Gao would also periodically return to his home village in Da Shan Township in Shandong province to teach.

He never returned to the Tianjin area and spent his remaining years living in the back of a Chinese medicine shop; he died in 1951 at the age of eighty-five.

According to both Zhang Junfeng and He Kecai, Wu Mengxia was their senior brother under Gao Yisheng and shared much information on Gao-style baguazhang theory with them.

This branch survived quietly via the Bi family in Beijing after Wu Mengxia was imprisoned during the Communist assumption of power.

The Gao-style system, because of Gao's own martial progression over time, can be found to have a number of different permutations, represented in various lineages.

Guanghua baguazhang as practiced in the Wu Mengxia line consists of 108 "major exercises".. a number with numerological and cosmological significance (108 beads on a mala, 108 stars in ziwei doushu).

The xiantian section of the art includes: Guanghua Bagua in the Wu Mengxia line does not have the eight "static" or neigong palms found in many Cheng-based baguazhang styles).

The houtian section of the art includes: Additionally there are also has 108 classic songs for the system to complement the 108 major movements.