Author: Sam Arnold
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What Does STAGE Mean?
You’ve seen us throwing the word “STAGE” around a lot. But what exactly does it represent? It encapsulates the core building blocks of the entire developmental and play program at Slate. “S” represents Skill Development. When we teach, we breakdown the finer skills needed to improve your game. With isolation and proper Skill Step progression,…
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What’s Happening at Slate?
What a journey it’s been so far! Having to close for two weeks stunk. The last thing I want to do as the founder is to let everyone down! We definitely appreciated that our members were so understanding and patient. We are thrilled to welcome everyone back. One of the good things to come out…
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The Biggest Differentiator
If I had to pick one athletic skill that truly differentiates other pickleball players from one another, what would it be? And then, how would I effectively train it? First, let’s go over what athletic skills mean in this context. We aren’t going to get too general, as in overarching agility, balance, or coordination skills.…
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Booking a Court at Slate? Here’s What You Get…
The on-court experience at Slate is nothing like you’ve experienced before. First, as you may have seen from our renders, it will be the most stunning space for an actual court-playing area ever designed. The building materials are quite functional as well. The wood on the back walls is actually a special acoustic material which…
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Construction Construction Construction!
If you’ve been following along, you may have noticed that things have been pushed back. You always hear that construction is never done on time. And now, experiencing it firsthand, you really get to understand why. To make Slate truly great and incomparable, there are many steps that we are taking that unfortunately increase the…
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Midcourt Madness on the Pickleball Court!
Stage 1 of Slate’s opening is complete. We’ve evaluated hundreds of Stage 1 members. We’re so grateful for having the opportunity to meet you all and have you all on court. As spoken of in previous blogs, our coaching team has noticed specific patterns of play that get a lot of players in trouble and…
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Pickleball Forehands and the Kinetic Chain
How do you create a proper kinetic chain on forehand pickleball shots like the dink and drive? I see a lot of “paddle tip down” techniques applied by many players, especially in the Intern and Manager Levels, which unfortunately isn’t a good method. You’re limiting the energy control to just the muscles in your arm,…
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Let’s Get Flicky With It
The flick is one of the ultimate weapons in pickleball. You can take a short soft shot that was more effective before this shot existed and whip it into topspin shape, an offensive weapon that will rock your opponents’ world. To wisely execute it, you first have to take a tactics-first approach. What is the…
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Level Evaluations: Reflections and Results
📝The data is in! As of writing this article, we have conducted assessments on exactly 240 Stage 1 Slaters! We’ve had at least two sets of eyes from our highly trained staff on each Evaluation to ensure maximum accuracy. 👁️Have a look at the distribution chart below: You can see there is certainly a bell…
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Slate’s Junior STAGE Program
Junior Development! This became the bedrock of my passion for coaching tennis a decade ago. Developing the physical literacy and tennis skills of a student from a young age all the way to the point where they became teenage tournament-level players, growing their love for the game in the process, was very rewarding. Perhaps it comes…