Lipslide

The lipslide is similar to the boardslide (the board ends up perpendicular to the rail here too), but the approach is the opposite: you jump over the rail and then catch it with the middle of the board from the other side. It takes more guts and more precision, because you literally have to clear the rail before landing on it. It’s an impressive trick that demands excellent body control in the air.

How to Do It

1. Approach the rail from the frontside (the rail is on your chest side if you’re regular). You need a bit more speed than for the boardslide.
2. Ollie high enough to clear the rail with the tail of the board.
3. While you’re in the air over the rail, turn your hips 90° frontside: the nose of the board comes back down on the side you started from.
4. You land with the middle of the board on the rail, perpendicular to it, from the other side. Same position as the boardslide, just reached a different way.
5. Slide along the rail with your weight centered, then counter-rotate 90° to ride out in your original direction (if you keep rotating, you ride out fakie: that’s a “lipslide to fakie”).

Common Mistakes

• Not getting far enough over the rail: if you don’t bring the tail far enough over the rail before you rotate, you land on the edge of the rail instead of in the center, and a fall is guaranteed. It takes guts.
• Rotating too fast: the rotation has to finish while you’re above the rail, not before. The timing has to be precise.
• Forgetting the exit: the lipslide needs an exit rotation, and it isn’t as automatic as it looks. Plan it.

Progression

The lipslide is an advanced trick that shows you really know how to read features. From here you can try variations like the Lipslide to Fakie, or take it to longer, angled rails to raise the difficulty even more.