Boxers use of focus mitts

Lee Richardson wrote:

Does anyone know why boxing coaches bring their focus mitts to meet the boxer's punches half way?

Not all Boxers do this, and most of the ones I have trained with hold the pads as they should (i.e. solidly). However, I’m certainly aware of what you mean and I’ve seen lots do just that; mainly world level guys, but a few others too. Obviously it makes for less effective training as the holder is hitting for the hitter; it you get what I mean.

As a guess, I wonder if high level trainers do this on public displays / public training to make their fighters look (and sound) even better? It makes them look faster and gives a huge “THWACK” everything the pads are hit. Joe public is impressed as they are unaware that the pads are being held incorrectly. Less experienced trainers then copy this “display padwork” in training not realising its real purpose is to look good for TV cameras?

All the best,

Iain

From what I've experienced there is usually very little movement to meet the gloves when a trainer is holding mits.  The big, showy pawing at the strikes coming in, meeting the strikes better than half way I think is really just for show.  And, when the cameras are rolling, all you'll get is show.

The biggest reason to want to meet the strike a little, and I mean a little as in an inch or two, is to lessen the impact in the trainer's shoulders, elbows and wrists.  It's a lot easier on your joints when your doing a lot of pad work with a hard hitter if you meet them just a little.  Dynamic tension seems to absorb impact far better than static tension in the body.  Of course, this is all just personal experience, in part from working with a pro kick boxer for a while.  I've not been really "trained" on holding mits other than the basics of setting people up and given a hint after grumping about sore shoulders and elbows.  But, kind in mind the grains of salt that should be taken with such as above.

We also DO do this, and like Myke just said, it is to protect the shoulders and joints of the coach...if you are holding for a line of guys that can really hit, you are generally taking the force of all of those shots straight into your rotator joint.  At 42, personally, when I am holding for a bunch of young bucks, my shoulders get sore as heck.

Theoretically, this is also to  prevent the striker from 'flashing' their joint, and to allow them to project somewhat more force into the hit (Myke's comments on dynamic tension).  Basically the opposing motion of the coach acts like a shock absorber, or like a (Amercican) football tackling sled.

I also agree very much with Myke that the motion is only a couple of inches, and the way I teach it, it is important that it is more done with a **slight** BODY turn than with a motion of the arm or hand... the mitt stays basically in place but the body turns to receive the punch.  I tell students to use an 'easy hi-five' kind of energy, because the whole point is to 'receive' and 'resist' the punch somewhat, not to meet the fist, per se.

Often, this exercise is very overdone by students or coaches who are just starting out with mitt work, which can create its own problems.  (basically, where the hitter is learning to hit a target that is halfway between him and teh real thing).   A friend of mine says that 'its easier to learn to hit mitts well than it is to learn to hold them well'. 

Another drill I am less convinced about, but which is theoretically sound, is when you see guys "choo-choo" on the mits pat-a-cake like (almost like a wingchun straight blast) in between combinations.  The theory is that this helps them to find combos out of dynamic motion because thier hands never stop moving.

It's a good question.

miket wrote:

I also agree very much with Myke that the motion is only a couple of inches, and the way I teach it, it is important that it is more done with a **slight** BODY turn than with a motion of the arm or hand... the mitt stays basically in place but the body turns to receive the punch.  I tell students to use an 'easy hi-five' kind of energy, because the whole point is to 'receive' and 'resist' the punch somewhat, not to meet the fist, per se.

Often, this exercise is very overdone by students or coaches who are just starting out with mitt work, which can create its own problems.  (basically, where the hitter is learning to hit a target that is halfway between him and teh real thing).   A friend of mine says that 'its easier to learn to hit mitts well than it is to learn to hold them well'.

Exactly. Giving the pads “weight” is one thing, but it’s the active slapping and “meeting half way” that I have issue with. In some instance the punches had couls remain still and there’d still be a resounding THWACK! :-)

I also entirely agree with your friend’s statement. I know lots of good hitters; but only a handful of truly good holders. It is a true skill and one we examine against for greadings. The theory being that we need good holders in order to develop good hitters. If we don’t teach and emphasise good holding, it could limit how far we can take the hitting.

All the best,

Iain

Thanks for all the responses, that's certainly cleared things up for me. We're always open to new ways to train, if it improves on what we already do. It's been bothering me that we might have been missing a trick and that there might be a good reason for the half and half drilling, but we'd never just adopt it without knowing why we were doing it that way. It simply hadn't occurred to me that boxers only do it when the cameras are rolling.

Thanks in particular to miket for the tip about using a slight body turn to receive the strikes, rather than arm movement alone. That's definitely a keeper.

My brother and I run a small school and at one point we realized we were doing all the holding during mit drills because none of the students were very skilled at holding.  At that point we stuck the mits on their hands and started teaching them how to hold just like any other skill aquired as part of their training.  Just the other night when working the mits we had to touch up on moving with the mits, presenting them for combinations etc.  We always point out that being good on the mits helps improve your partner who in turn helps improve you.  It's getting better, but you can feel the difference when working with a more experienced mit holder and when I really want to work on improving, I go to my more skilled training partners.

LOL, Myke, that's exactly what I do.  :-)  My first certification is a series of about 20 open hand strikes and kicks, along with corresponding 'standard' holds that are also a requirement for the student to know.

The reason I use 'standard' holds is important, I think.  If you look at many fighters, the coach 'says' the combination they are about to hold out loud.  My thinking is, this is teaching the student to 'cue' on the coaches voice as the stimulus, not on THEIR perception of an opening.  So coach says "four count" and pop-pop-pop-pop, the student bangs out his four count.  We DO make use of this type of training sometimes, especially if if we are training multiple static combinations, so I'm not knocking it.  But about half the time, I have the coaching side hold 'silently', which is where the standard mitt placement comes in... mitt position X is 'always' a finger jab (or other front hand linear shot depending on what we are working on), Mitt position Y is 'always' a leg kick; Mitt position Z is 'always a slap, etc. etc. etc.

Many of these are admittedly subtle variations in angles... for instance, the slap position mitt is held sideways, strike surface perpendicular to the hitter.  Then for a forward horizontal elbow, the mitt is cocked at a 45 degree angle and held a couple of inches to the side of centerline.  Visually they look pretty similar, so both sides have to pay attention to what they are doing. I also know that sounds fussy, but we also have 'rules' about ranges:  i.e. any time that the mitt is held halfway between hitter and coach or closer to the hitter, its an elbow strike of some kind; any time its held 'closer' to the coach than half way (i.e. what you might consider 'normal' striking range), then its a long range strike. of some kind.  And of course, sometimes the 'hitter' doesn't exactly match up what the coach wants, and, in this instance, will close and 'elbow' when the coach intended to hold a 'slap'.  I'm fine with that, because a) I think it introduces a very slight chaos factor, which I approve of, and b) in this case, its the hitter who is 'driving the bus' deciding what motions they will use in response to what openings, not the coach telling them what to do.  So, they are cueing their S/R/R and follow-ups on a suddenly available target and not what the coach is saying.

And then, when we go to light contact drills, I have found that students are subsequently much better at 'touch' level sparring where they can just use their palms as targets.  This gets useful when you start to go to countering drills and counter-the-counter type drills.  One guy can 'feed' good punches without having Mickey Mouse Size hands (which IMO definitley impacts the ease with which someone can defend), then give 'good' targets for the other guy to react to simply using their hands.  So you can get a much more realistic level of offense-defense interplay, although you obviously can't do this with real hard contact.

 I have found that this makes a great drill to use AFTER voice coaching.  The reason is:  when you are firing a static combination, both the hitter and holder know exactly what happens next.  So both sides are moving positionally in a way that is mostly independnt of what the otheris doing.  There is no 'orienting' or 'deciding' for the hitter when he is throwing a forur count (lets say J-C-H-C).  Coach says "four count" and hitter immediately starts firing FOUR punches in series.  On the surface this seems 'good', and for 'chunking', I believe  it is.    But as an exercise, I have found that this menas that the fighter is 'driving the bus' mentally.  They can literally 'fire' four punches in series and simply rely on the coach to get the mitts in the right place.

By contrast, when you DON'T specify what is going to happen, it is much, much harder for the fighter to observe, orient, decide and act on what just popped up.   So with our JCHC example, there are four mitt positions.  If you get a guy really good at a static four count, and THEN let the coaching side hold those same mitt positions randomly (let alone 10, 12 or 20 positions held randomly), it reaaaaaaalllly messes with people, and you will see about a 30% drop in ability, becuase in this case, the fighter has to literally 'orient to' and 'match up a strike for' every hold position he or she perceives.  So it gets a lot harder for them, and they will go from automatically banging out four solid motions to a lot more hesitations and misses.  No< I don't wnat to train them to hesitate or miss, but in this case, the purpose of the drill is precisely to get them to see a sudden target and mentally match up an offensive motion, kinda like snap shotting at a shooting gallery...  Whoops, that one was a civillian.  :-)     

Anyway, sounds like you and I are using a similar approach, so I thought I would mention it since it seems on topic.

This is a topic I have brought up many times with the other trainers at my work and we can never seem to agree.

My arguement is the same as mentioned above, with my sensei and my fellow karate-ka we have always held the pads static with just enough movement to help absorb the shock of a heavy hit, this way the puncher is encouraged to work the full range of movement and hit "through" the pad, rather than be met halfway.

My arguement has always been "I've never met anyone who willingly puts his face into my fist!"

Also from a fitness standpoint I see so many trainers who dont spend the time teaching their clients how to punch safely and effectively that when I see them slapping their mitts into a limp wristed uppercut or hook I almost wince at the thought of a snapped wrist! It drives me crazy as most of them are taught by so called "boxercise" instructors who just seem to be copying the "show" techniques as described in an earlier post.

What was amusing was my gym manager refused to send me on the boxercise course with all the other trainers as he previously sent one of my fellow karate-ka, a sparring partner at my club who also works for our company. He spent the whole course arguing with the instructor on how to safely and effectively hold the pads!

Aparantly Im worse! Haha!