Mitt Practice

Mitt practice.

Mitt practice is the training exercise of one person holding training mitts while another has boxing gloves on and hitting the training mitts with punches while inside a boxing ring. The purpose is to train the rhythm of a boxer's combinations, muscle memory of where to hit, and for the coach to train their boxer for certain punches. The person holding the mitts can also throw "punches" for the boxer to dodge as well.

Some coaches have unique ways of doing mitt practise. Genji Kamogawa takes the extra padding out to create a louder sound when a boxer punches, which causes the boxer to feel more confident in their punches and leads to a better rhythm. He also angles the mitts so that all punches land on knockout areas, which develops the muscle memory to strike at the most vital targets. Ruslan Ramuda uses ball-shaped mitts created specifically to help the precision of up-down and left-right combinations for Alexander Volg Zangief's up-down combination technique White Fang. Ippo Makunouchi incorporates a numbering system into his mitt practise, shouting out a number from his list which the boxer then throws the punch assigned to the number.

In-fighters are bad at holding training mitts compared to out-boxers. In-fighters tend to stand too close to the puncher while holding mitts, making it harder to catch punches and for the puncher to hit. Out-boxers have an easier time since they rely more on rhythm and distance already. If a boxer when they were active were good at seeing punches and dodging, then they would have an easier time seeing and catching them as a mitt holder. A veteran mitt holder is able to sync their breathing with the boxer to perform long combos.

Boxers can develop their fighting skills by holding the mitts. Thanks to holding the mitts for Taihei Aoki and Kintarō Kaneda, Ippo obtained the ability to push away, catch, and parry punches, similar to using counters, which he was poor at while active.