Hi, blaack-widow
My 2 cents:
Having no formal training, I basically taught myself animation from scratch, over the last 6 years. During that time a friend of mine, being one quarter shy of an art degree he often reminded me, also endeavored in the same vein. He spent lots of money on good quality dvds, books, and was always finding some way to verbally show his superior understanding. I had neither money nor time to buy (or borrow, or read)  these things, I was too busy quite frankly shellacking him in everything we attempted to do together, animation -wise. Now, all these years later, he is lots of money in the hole, and still can't animate his way into or out of a paper bag, and is not making money on art, period. My career has (finally!) just begun but already I've won an animation contest (for category  "Best Use of New Technology", with a $250 cash prize) judged by an industry pro, and a small growing trickle of income every month is coming in due to my animation work. My approach is simple: hands on, hands on, hands on. Sure, I read manuals and tutorials, you have to. But I almost always only read and explore things that are related to my immediate goals, the urgent task at hand, to overcome the obstacle that keeps me from doing whatever it is that I've decided to do.

But on the other hand, you could spend a LOT of time absorbing the excellent "The Animator's Survival Kit", and it might help you 5%, (and perhaps make you feel really classy and well-rounded, like it did for my friend)  but it will not help you with the 95% software package specific idiosyncracies that can only be absorbed...that's right, HANDS ON.  Be prepared to spend major blocks of time at the computer, with roughly 20% of that time screaming at the apparently deaf and merciless monitor.

So my advice, for what it's worth, is to start with some SIMPLE things and get excited about making it happen, and don't stop until you've animated it  (Just don't expect the animation layers feature to work in Poser 7 or PoserPro, because it  just  doesn't). Then just keep building on your accomplishments. 
I can attest that Virtual Training Company has some excellent Poser video tutorials, for $100 you can get the 100 hour Poser 7 course.  I'm thinking about doing that myself, one of these days...when I can find the time away from all this darned animating :) 

very best  wishes
Eye