i ride my board backwards for any shove or varial flip. can be managed the other way, but i prefer to start backwards - my thinking is that I'm going to keep going after I do whatever the trick was, so i want my board to be around the right way for everything else...
admittedly, sometimes i'll get a bit awkward and fuck up just rolling up to the shove/varial before I get to it because of the backwards board, rarely, but sometimes. the board was gonna be backwards at some point though - for me I'd rather fuck up before the trick than after.