I'm baffled at the number of posts on here by people having problems with the C and G major open chords. They were the first two I learnt, followed by D or D7.

I'm wondering if starting a teaching program that begins on E and/or A, or one-finger "chords" is the cause of all of this.

The first open chord I struggled with was B7, then the usual problems for a while with barre chords.

I also have problems with the concept of pulling the elbow in towards the body, as that pulls the forearm into such an angle that you have no alternative other than to twist your wrist, which in turn pulls on the tendons of the finges, in order to position fingers across the width of the fretboard. I would say the best position for the forearm is somewhere between 70 to 90-degrees from the neck. If your elbow is almost touching your ribcage, then I think this will definitely restrict finger motion to the point of making playing comfortably, or at speed, almost impossible unless you push the head away from your body so far that you start to look more like you're holding a rifle.