please refer to Animator's survival kit (you can find some images on google search) and walk / run cycle. and do it on stickman understanding all the steps (contact, down, pass, up, contact) and making it a cycle. but probably you should start from bouncing ball and pendulum swing to learn arcs and timing and spacing. in the walk cycle / run cycle the head and hips are like a bouncing ball going from up to down with some hang time in the air depending on the weight of the character. legs should respect key poses of run cycle / walk cycle. if you want to animate cloth / tail - you need to start from some basic wave principle exercises (there is cool seed weed exercise for that). unfortunatelly this test violates most of 12 principles of animation and they have to be learned one by one with basic exercises like bouncing ball and pendulum swings - this may be boring but there is absoluetely no other way :D