Animation is a language. One can study a language locked away all day via textbooks and such. But all they’d get is book knowledge. They’d still never grasp it. And if they heard the new language in use they couldn’t follow it . The best way to learn a language is to become immersed in the culture that uses that language everyday. Soon you stop thinking in terms of how the “words” compare to a language you understand and you start to just understand the new language natively. Then once you get to that point all the subtleties and nuances of the language in use can be understood. It’s the difference between saying (or understanding) “Hello, friend.” and “Yo, wuzzup, dog?”. Both mean the same thing, one version has flavor, nuance, culture, style. So what does this dribble mean?
The best way to learn animation, to understand it, is to do it. A lot. And then ask for the feedback from others to point out what you don’t see. And then animate more. And then, animate some more. And when you’ve done that, go ahead and try to animate some more. When we start learning animation we’re struggling to say “Hello, friend.” with our work. Most initial efforts end up saying something like “Hlloeeo furoondeend?”. But keep working it and get immersed in doing it long enough and the time comes when your animation work can say “Hello, friend.”. And then after even more doing and more doing and more doing, someday (if you’re blessed with talent) your animation will say “Yo, wuzzup dog?” and people smile because your work has that spark of life. The sooner you start, the better. Don Graham (old time Disney drawing teacher from the way back days) had a saying: “Every one of us has 100,000 bad drawings in us. The sooner we get those out of the way the better for everybody involved.” That’s just as true in animation. We have HUNDREDS, perhaps THOUSANDS of bad scenes in us. Don’t wait til January to get started. That’s silly. Get those nasty bad animation tests out of your system now, not while you’re paying a significant chunk of money to be told to do it. Don’t just throw money at these guys out of hero worship thinking their greatness will rub off on you. It won’t (even though these guys are all genuinely groovy cats who are worth the admiration. 
). They got their greatness from God’s hand and their own hard work. They animated. A ton. Ask them sometime about how many nights they stayed up til sunrise working their craft, even after they’d gotten professional gigs as animators during the day. Your greatness will come not from AM, but from God’s hand and your hard work. Don’t wait for AM to make you a great animator. It can’t. It can give you tools, it can give you experienced eyes looking at your work, it can give you help, but it can’t make you a good animator. That’s on your shoulders and the day to begin it has arrived, even if January is still 5 months off.
-k
and I’m gonna buy stop staring 
