Every professional fighter knows a secret about your body that you were never taught.

Aim for the soft hollow at the pit of the stomach, just below where the ribs part. A clean shot there drops a trained athlete to his knees, folds him in half, empties him of air and will in a single beat. Boxers have worked this spot for over a century, and the reason reaches deeper than anyone in the ring needs to understand. A hard enough blow to that hollow has killed men outright.

You have probably felt a smaller version of it the day something like a soccer ball caught you square in the gut. I've felt it many times. The lungs empty, but that isn't the whole of it. Something deeper goes offline. For a few endless seconds the body will not answer, and no amount of trying pulls air back in. It feels less like losing your breath and more like being briefly unplugged.

That is exactly what happens.