Yijing expert Knigh Dheigh has called the Yi a system of philosophical psychology and psychological philosophy.  In its present form the Yijing consists of a large body of writings from a number of Chinese sages spanning over three thousand years. The Yijing is an index or almanac of nature’s laws as they apply to the planets, stars and the affairs of all humans, plants and animals in the world. 

There are some historical indications that Dong Hai Chuan may not have been the only Ba Gua Zhang teacher in China.  Historical documents indicate that there were numerous although little known variations of Daoist boxing and Dao Yin (Qi Gong) arts based upon the Yijing that predated Dong’s Ba Gua Zhang.  Daoist monks and scholars populating regions throughout China often created their old styles of eight-shape boxing which were seldom taught publicly. 
  A version of the single palm change, one of the most basic concepts of Ba Gua Zhang, has been practiced as a Qi energy exercise in a particular Daoist Temple for over one thousand years.  Monks at Emei Mountain, where Daoist and Buddhist influences intermingled, also created Ba Gua Zhang forms and exercises.  A Ba Gua Zhang research facility in mainland China has recorded over one hundred separate styles of Ba Gua Zhang in existence today and reports that many others have been lost or have died with their creators. 

One family style of Ba Gua Zhang was said to have been conceived by Daoist sage Li Ching yuen. Li, a Chinese scholar who died in the early 1930's lived, according to an article in the New York Times, to be 260 years old. Li always told people that his remarkable strength and health were due to a special diet and the daily practice of an internal Qigong and martial arts style he devised which later came to be named Jiulong Ba Gua Zhang (the nine dragon eight diagram palm method.)  He claimed to have learned the basis of it from a Daoist monk in the Emei mountains of China.  This ancient sage reportedly instructed Li Ching yuen in his own personal style of Ba Gua Zhang based upon the wisdom of the Book of Changes. Mr. Lee claimed that this system of Ba Gua Zhang opened the doorway to internal energy by establishing a relationship of physical postures to mental attitudes which in turn created immense Qi energy for health and self-defense.  Although there are many external similarities, Li's Daoist 9 dragon Ba Gua Zhang differs from Dong's version in a number of ways. 

     Li Ching yuen Nine Dragon Ba Gua Zhang method in the final stages has no forms in the traditional sense.  The core of his art consists of a Wholistic internal and external training compromising meditation, Qigong, basic linear forms, and circle walking holding eight postures. 
     A study of the meaning and images of each of the eight basic Gua of the Yijing as they relate to attitude, action, tactics and use of each of the basic formations guide the training. Eight Mother palm shapes refer to whole body positions incorporating all of the body's energies. The shapes become entire attitudes, permitting the entire psychological and physiological makeup of the student. 
     Each of the eight postures is studied in the context of the shapes they form while walking the circle and changing directions.  The student also studies the changing of a single posture from one palm to another and the positive (yang) and negative (yin) aspects of each palm.  He studies the eight methods of generating Fajing, kinetic power, and the eight methods of Tian Jin, listening power.  Listening power is the ability to feel external force and react to its with any part of the body.  It is used to interpret the intentions of an opponent by listening to his pre-movement through touch 
   There are also defensive tactics, which comprise the six methods of entering into the opponent’s center of power by the six bridges.  Use of special principles of energy and power from the wedge and ball principles to create dynamic Jin (mind/body biomechanical energy). 
     In the more advanced stage, palm postures are combined one with the other, for example, using the right hand in heaven palm while the left-hand forms the wind palm.  When a student comes to fully understands the numerous variations of a single shape (posture- stance- action) mentally and physically, how it can be used to generate Qi and how it connects with the stances to generate power or Jin, he is said to have achieved Yizhang De (the virtue of one palm). He has passed through one of the Ba Long Men, eight dragon doors.  After each of the shapes and forms of the eight Mother forms are absorbed has Ba Gua zhang De(eight shapes off palm virtue). 
     At this level, movement begins to spontaneously generate forms.  As a student comes to know these forms intuitively, they begin to exist or a subconscious level, coming and going as naturally as any other habitual activity.  He has passed through the ninth dragon door.  He is now a nine-dragon Ba Gua Zhang boxer.