The flare
We've had lots of good talk about landings lately. The flare is a part of the landing, which deserves special mention, and always, more attention.
Nearly all landings are the gentle termination of a descent toward the surface. So we're going down, then we want to pretty well stop going down. Doing this actually requires an acceleration upward, if you think of it, as you were going down at a stable speed, now you don't want to be going down anymore, so accelerate upward a bit.
That acceleration upward will require the application of control, and some energy. That energy usually should come from bleeding off that last bit of airspeed to the point of a stall. So, you have to have the excess speed to bleed off. If you don't, a frantic, and uncool application of lots of power will usually do it too, but that's a messy way, and depends upon your engine jumping to life at the instant you expect. So, let's just focus on the "not adding power" method.
Very simply, you're going to determine the precise moment, and apply some pitch up. As the plane slows, and settles, you're going to apply more and more pitch up, until you run out of control, or flying - ideally, both at the same time!
So the flare, is a deliberate acceleration upward. The pilot will have to command that. To get the acceleration, you'll have to give up energy. You may have read me harping on having a few extra knots on climb away, in case of EFATO. Those extra knots are the energy you would like to have to flare with. Without it, you're not going to achieve the desired acceleration upward, and a expensive thump will result.
On the opposite side, you can use considerable power to stretch a flare into an indefinitely long event - as long as the landing surface gives you room. But, use caution, as this can get you close to banging the tail, or drifting off to the side, if there is any crosswind. You can also stretch a flare, by arriving over the threshold of a long runway with bags of extra speed, and simply reducing any remaining power steadily, as you raise the nose, and hold your position inches above the runway centerline. At some point around the stall, you're going to have a very nice landing - it's the distance down the runway which will be uncertain.
Or, back to the fully power off flare. It's going to happen quickly, and therefore in a pretty predictable place along the runway. As test pilot John Farley has written, "point the plane at the runway, and that's where you'll crash if you do nothing". The flare is just something to prevent the crash!
Give the flare more thought, as its own enjoyable aspect of landing, rather than just that brief scary time between flying and thumping on! If you learn to savour it, you'll get better at it....