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Elbows: Your elbows are tucked in to protect you from getting hit in the body. Your elbows act as a defensive shield to block any incoming blows to the body.

To show how important it is to block a body blow with your elbows, I always tell my students that if they don’t do this, I’ll knock the wind out of them. To date, I have knocked the wind out of well over 10,000 students—with either a punch or a kick—because they didn’t keep their elbows tucked in. More than half of these were police officers. Many police officers believe that if they wear a vest in the field a body blow cannot drop them. I prove them wrong when I spar with them—with them wearing a bulletproof vest. The results are the same—with the vest on, I just hit them a little harder.

Getting dropped by a body blow could be fatal to an officer involved in an altercation, which is why I am an avid believer in keeping the elbows tucked in. The real beauty of the elbow block, though, is that it does not compromise your defensive stance. I have personally broken many people’s hands with a simple elbow block.