I think it is personal preferrence, but it is always "good" to have a starting position that allows you to clear your hip without trouble and prevents avoidable muscle influence to steer the pendulum.
With the elbow at the hip: this distributes ball weight in the adress position, and it can come natural if you keep the hand behind the ball during the swing and delivery. But I'd say it really depends on you physical architecture whether this is something fruitable or not, I would not take it as a style paradigm.
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DizzyFugu - Reporting from Germany

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