I think @snookered_again is confusing bending the arm at the elbow with dropping the upper arm. Of course it is nearly impossible to play any kind of normal stroke without bending the arm at the elbow.Do you mean without raising or dropping your elbow? That's the purpose of the pendulum stroke....
(On a side note, Mike Davis keeps his elbow locked and rotates from the shoulder, or at least he used to. It looks really, really weird. I saw him run 153 balls IIRC with that technique. )