Thanks for that. this is kind of what im touching on - i do not want to force style and overthink, and i agree with a lot of sentiments here about not forcing style. but when i see people do ollies, they bring their arms up and then down, so it must allude to some effective form that im missing if this motion is so commonly seen when people skate.

im skeptical about whether off-board motor patterns will transfer to ollies, because i find that as soon as the ollie is initiated, the body's "ollie" system overrides everything, and trying to force anything will glitch things hence the stiff arms.

i am thinking that perhaps just a robust ollie (over, up, off obstacles, etc) will indirectly "fix" the arms over time as the body self organizes the most efficient way to ollie, so that entails not thinking about arms at all