My ski brethren, the one footed slides are looking good. I’m not talking about the much maligned rollerblade style slide that Charles Gagnier made famous with his 2005 gold medal run in the X Games. I’m talking entire ski on the rail, forward slide.

It’s been a long time coming. The first time I remember seeing it was when CR Johnson threw it down on a handrail that abutted a wall in Happy Dayz. Since then it has been ignored, ridiculed, or straight up hated on. But I tell you my friends, its day seems to have finally arrived. People are doing them with style and I’m an especially big fan of when it’s done on the top half of a flat-down, and then swapped to a regular slide. Shit’s smooth, stylish, and adds desperately needed variety to the rail tricks possible on skis.

That said, it leads naturally into the eternal question…what’s next?

We’ve seen noseslides (what most skiers call nosepresses, but for my purposes will need to be named properly) come and go. It seems like they can be achieved to some degree, but physics stops us from getting far out enough on our noses to make it aesthetically unique from a regular slide. Of course the C-rail is an exception, but that’s really just centrifugal force keeping you on. It’s not sustainable on a flat surface. Tailslides, swivels, crookslides, pushes, nollies, and tappity-taps are here to stay. They’re stylish as all hell, and they’re immediately recognizable as different, even to a non-skier. But the question remains…what’s next? We know it can’t stop there, and there’s still shit tons of room for rail trick variation.

I’ll drop my idea in a second, but this will be way more fun if you’ll add your 2 cents. Post up your predictions for future tricks in the comments (to join, just put in your email address). My prediction is a switch 1-foot nosepress. I’m not talking about a noseslide here; lord knows we can’t do those too well with 2 feet. I’m talking about sliding switch on 1 foot and leaning hard for your toes and getting that tail up off the rail/box. It’d probably be easiest on wood or a wide metal surface. I think the off-rail foot could provide some counterweight, and otherwise you’d just lean in hard. I’d imagine some rockered skis would help, but they’re the future anyway. Right?