Chad that dude won? Shit man I thought you bashing his fucking face in there was the end of the fight. I'da been pissed to lose that bout.
Anywho, elbows TO the body, a VERY underrated technique but rightfully so because it's difficult to get into optimum positioning to execute them without committing every cardinal sin in smart stand-up. But there is a way to do it I think, something we used to practice a lot in Muay Thai. I think the only maximum-effect time to do it is from the clinch, but you have to go back and look at that thread I did on the Muay Thai clinch because there's some general rules to basic clinching that will keep you from getting killed (kneed to the face, guillotine choked, Pro Wrestling DDT'ed lol, or upper-cutted) when attempting elbows to the body. I'll give you the how, and the how to practice.
The how - you do have to bend your knees as if you're throwing punches to the body, of course. But you also have to be significantly closer if you want to throw a clean 'bow without leaning over and exposing your face and chin. What I used to do is execute a fast-hard shot on the head or arms for a clinch (if none of you knows how to shoot the head or arms, learn some basic Greco-Roman Wrestling, not everything is flippin' collar-and-elbow, you can shoot in quickly and catch your opponent off-guard). Now, you don't just bend your knees at this point and start firing off body elbows. You could if you think your opponent is dumb enough to just stand there and get blasted. But few people are. What I used to do is work up-AND-down in my clinches. Too many guys only focus on knees or takedown, or upper-cuts in the clinch. Very few guys realize you can use the clinch to bully around your opponent if either you're stronger or know how to get better leverage. In football we used to practice hitting up under the pads, pushing a guy bigger than you by putting your hands right at the bottom of his rib-cage and pressing up and back. If he's standing taller than you and not leaning on you, this will ALWAYS push him back. You can push him to either side by getting into his arm-pits, twisting your knees in whatever direction you want him to go, then jerking your upper-body to match your lower-body while maintaining a tight grip on either his arms or neck. He'll have no choice but to follow.
So with that in mind here's what I used to do for body-elbows with maximum effect. I used to do this in High School Wrestling as well because well, I was a cheater. lol If you bend your knees and get lower, and are moving him around a bit because you have better leverage, if you get him trying to do somthing with your head, lower your arms to shoulder level and step close, almost lunging, twist your hips and fire the elbow. If you're using your right arm aim at his left side, because even if he tries to turn, you'll end up catching him right in the middle of his torso of clean on the right side right on the rib-cage. Against the cage in a clinch is a WONDERFUL time to do this. If you really want to bust his ribs up and make him completely unable to defend it, while you're clinching get up under one of his arms with yours. If you're using your right arm get up under his right arm. Let him relax for a second like that, try to get your hips close to his, if he has his ass way back this won't work (you could land something else though, like an elbow upper-cut, which people never use but is a Hell of a strike to land), but what you do is when he's relaxed thinking you are at a loss for what to do, quickly raise your left arm and throw his right arm over your head, right when you raise your left-arm cock your right-arm back and as soon as his arm clears the top of your head BLAST your right-elbow into his rib-cage. You have to be some kind-of fast to do this, but if you can it'll REALLY suck for him. Now I mentioned I used to do this to guys in Wrestling. Wanna know why? Because right when their breath escapes them from taking an elbow in their completely un-defended ribs and I hear "oof!"...guess what. You lock your arms around their waist (because now their back is almost exposed to you), stand-up straight, pop your hips, and as Rampage would say...slam them on they mo'fuggin' head.
Guys would bitch up a storm when I did it, but I got that elbow so fast no one would ever have seen it. lol
Now, in-terms of practicing this, it's pretty easy. You can do it on your heavy-bag but you have to step-in so close to your bag that it's leaning either on your shoulder or arms the way an opponent would if you were clinching. This will help because the bag will react like an opponent who has just taken a hard elbow to the body. You push it off a little, bend your knees, throw the 'bow, and the bag will fall over and lean right back on you. This is what opponents do.
You can also have one of your training partners wear the body-vest and work on this. I would incorporate it into focus-mitt drills though. Have your partner wear focus mitts, body-vest, and headgear, practice combo'ing into the clinch, once in the clinch, practice throwing the 'bow after throwing one of their arms over their head. Alternate sides as well, so you have two guns to fire this with instead of just one.
