A method of machining at least one tooth flank of a gear with a finishing tool. The method comprises rotating the finishing tool, such as a grinding tool, and bringing the tool and the tooth flank into contact. Relative movement between the tool and the gear is provided to traverse the tool across the tooth flank along a path whereby the path produces a tooth flank geometry of a form which, when brought into mesh with a mating tooth flank to form a tooth pair under no load or light load, provides a motion graph curve that intersects, at least two times, a motion graph curve of at least one of an immediately preceding tooth pair and an immediately following tooth pair. The motion graph curve of the tooth pair describes contact between respective tooth flanks of said tooth pair from an initial entrance into mesh to a final exit from mesh as being over a gear rotation amount of greater than 1.0 pitch and preferably, about 1.5 pitch to about 3.0 pitch.