Ahhh flares. My old friends! If nothing is certain except death and taxes, then is anything even aerial without flares and C-shaping?! While there are already three excellent tutorials in the Parish library for spinning flares and their applications, continuous flares are a related but subtly different technique. They are essentially a basic beat pathway that can be drilled continuously on sling or on rope when we avoid the tail but also used as a pick-up entry to S wrap, catchers and hip key (and as exits from all). But the pathway appears in so many other contexts. Like all flares, the figure 8 pathway can be a little confusing. When I first learnt them, I couldn’t get my head around the notion that I was turning away from the rope while still holding onto it 🤦♀️ If you feel humbled by flares remember that, as Alex once said to me, ‘flares are a project’!