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You've probably realized this by now but just saying because the majority of skaters do not seem to verbalize the following to themselves when it's really key to most flip tricks: those are all about building tension over different parts of your board before you even pop,
I've seen you mention this before but never thought to ask you more about it. Are you actively 'loading up' the deck before popping? Like, trying to flex the deck a certain way between your feet by pushing down against it as you're crouching pre-pop? My pre-pop is all about balancing/weight in the right spot and then the 'loading' happens as I come out of the crouch and into the pop (I guess).
Skatehacks mentions this quite a bit in his tuts, especially for 360 flips, but whenever I actively try to load up the deck pre-pop it doesn't feel right at all and I don't come anywhere close to landing what I'm trying.
I guess I'm having a hard time visualising what I'm supposed to be doing. Help?
Your description actually sounds accurate to what I'm describing and feel like I'm doing, except I suspect it's one of those things where overthinking it and then suddenly trying it overnight won't work better than just progressively grasping the feel for it and finding your own sweet spots over time, although of course that's a good start. What I think is important is remembering to look at your skateboard deck as a plain flat surface you're trying to imprint a certain motion to using the key articulations in your body (nothing more elaborate than that as in, I think it's important to demythologize the skateboard and skateboard tricks as singular objects), and realize a lot of the activity (especially flatground and/or flips) are just really basic tension and release, akin to how a slingshot works.
For me it's toying with the form of flatground kickflips that eventually led me to realize that - out of the blue I realized it really helped with my consistency and shaping on them to not just think about front foot action (which seems to be the typical basic approach) but also back foot placement and 'spring loading' - using my back foot as a stable counter to whatever my front foot was going to be doing, first with placement and then relying on my big toe to sort of nudge the tail behind me after building some tension (vs. naively pop straight down out of practical necessity) to help boost the flick all the while keeping me centered over the object. That just seemed to make the board stick to my front foot a lot better in a way that ensured consistent control whereas expecting everything from the front foot really was just introducing more arbitrary elements into the equation; you really want to think about what every active part of your body is doing and consider the consequences of your positioning and weight distribution over the flat surface before you even pop, otherwise you're sort of finding yourself popping at random and thus getting too wild a variety of results. Maybe one could say what you're really looking for is explosiveness in your pop, you don't necessarily want a high power output - you want an efficient one, and it's actually all there for the taking as soon as you start considering all the variables.
Another move that comes to mind is how some people do high ollies, especially skaters that are shorter in height (which happens to be my case). To compensate for shorter legs, a lot of them will optimize placement and spring loading with their front foot over the middle of the board's length, back foot in a very particular position on the tail that allows for a very quick snap and then the accompanying upper body posture that's really centered to be as neutral as possible in the execution - if you can do nosebonks or maybe even crook bonks on semi-tall objects you'll probably get what I mean. Someone with tall legs can just pop with less optimal technique and their own height will do a lot of the work for them, someone else will instead have to optimize speed and accuracy of their motion and perhaps stretch their body in a fashion that's more reminiscent of martial arts. You have to consider grip, pressure points (your means of interaction with the board) and sudden weight shifts to really 'pilot' your tricks.
One more situation where I regularly have to describe this kind of action is when teaching someone ollie impossibles, because the pop on that trick is so particular (seeing as you want zero front foot action once you've brought the tail down, and the board to spring up completely vertically), I often compare the mechanics to the one of a catapult. Front foot really puts pressure down (sometimes directly on the nose to compensate for the back foot covering the whole width of the tail) to make sure there is a build up to the next step, then as soon as you suddenly remove it you get this brutal reaction and smack to use. If you miss considering those forces then you get less pop to use for verticality and that's how people end up doing weird 360 shoves instead.
The more you'll think about it and suddenly try to incorporate it into your skating as if you already didn't have years of habits under your belt though, the less it will work out because what you really need is getting there yourself, but I think the best way to do so is by learning how to tweak very basic tricks - ollies and kickflips, switch too probably really helps (really all stances). Not necessarily tweak as in 'bone' like most people would consider (that's just one way of doing it) but literally all possible shapes, work on your ability to flex both low and high ollies and kickflips, from the quick type you would do up a curb say for a kickflip into manual to the type you'd use to clear taller objects or even get peak height ones on flat, experiment with different timing, positioning, movement speed as long as the trick works and you'll narrow down all the common denominators for yourself - and those are the fundamentals that really matter for each trick. Then the logic will click and you will naturally read your board better and develop that feel over time.
Relearning (and bettering) hardflips last year or so also really helped me understand my mental process when preparing for tricks in general, because I do those kind of weird, like a typical frontside varial kickflip that I just unfold in front of me (so I have to really optimize however vertical my snap can get - which isn't much, remember, short legs - and be quick to imprint the desired motion). It taught me that in general what worked best for me was to break down the actual order in which I set up for flatground tricks altogether, as opposed to doing it subconsciously and thus sometimes randomly - now and even for 360 flips (since you're mentioning them), that order is front foot first to the point where I can feel the concave just right (so that I know the board is actually going to react to that position once I pop), then back foot in a place that counters that front foot placement and allows me to build tension, and then once at this stage where my feet are actually 'gripping' the board already I consider what my upper body should be doing - locking it in place for straight tricks (e.g.. 360 flips again), or preparing for a rotation if desired. Backside 360 ollies on flat are one blatant example that actually solely relies on that (for me at least, and I guess the step hop counterpart as well), it's pretty obvious how most people set up for those in advance and then the very instant they release all pressure over the board they just spring through the whole motion all at once, as a reaction to how they've been 'loading' the trick when preparing for it.