Coming in with the most scorching hot take of the year, genuinely want to start a debate and not piss people off so let's get right into it:

Are no poles and short skis less impressive to do tricks on than long skis with poles? Well, in my experience yes, but other people will tell you it helps them balance on rails. It's subjective, and based on preference. However, something that I thought about in the shower earlier is that does removing the poles and shrinking the skis take away from the actual skiing. When you think of skiing, poles are really important, you're actually supposed to plant them and generate leverage to turn. A lot of people are really good so they can carve on groomers without them, but in powder and moguls, you're definitely going to struggle without them. So when I see someone with fat long skis and poles, I always in my head kind of see them as the better "skier" than those to who don't. This doesn't mean I think their tricks are better, or more impressive, it just seems to me that when you remove the actual devices used for skiing and make your entire catalog of gear centered around acrobatics, it doesn't really seem like you're "skiing" and seems more like you're doing tricks and just happen to be on skis. This also can be seen in let's say trick selection. Vinnie cash doing those double rodeos with screamin semens will always seem like the most impressive "skiing trick" in my eyes, because the trick is actually using the ski to do something insane. A quad cork is insane, but doing a crazy number of flips and spins is pretty much just gymnastics, and if you take away the poles (Making grabs easier), it seems like the farthest progression of the sport from it's actual fundamentals.

I think tricks that incorporate elements of skiing while also using the skis and poles in tricks is pretty much the most impressive "skiing tricks" you can do. You can see this in more places than just screamin semen grabs, it's also hippy killers and all that crazy stuff Andy Parry used to do, bouncing the poles off the rail mid grind, stuff like that, tricks that are inherently "skiing" tricks. You can do a cork on a snowboard, skis, trampoline, skateboard, bmx bike, rollerblades, pretty much anything where you get air, but a hippy killer? No, you can only do that maneuver on skis. Same with those cool daffy butters Tophalof does, as well as anyone else doing poleplants on volcanos and quarterpipes or wherever people do poleplants. So essentially what I'm saying is that yes, huge spins and quad corks are impressive tricks, but in my mind in order for something to be an impressive "ski trick", it has a trick that's specific to skiing... if that makes sense.

I mostly just want to hear what you guys think of this, again please don't take this as me bashing no poles short ski users, that's not the point I was trying to make.