The best method I found for learning to animate is to record myself with a cheep webcam, then try to match the pose frame by frame in poser using the video as the project background. Doing this I ended up putting in a lot more subtle expressions than I normally would. Now when I try to animate from scratch I can use the skills I learned from working with the reference. As an example to the above, you could record yourself hopping around on all 4 to animate a horse, or playing with hotwheels to animate a car. I can't do ballet though, so I'd be out of luck there. I suppose I could just get a ballet video from somewhere though.