stop motion animation -puppets can talk the talk but cant walk the walk

I have no problem with lip sync in animation, I find the lip sync programs easy making the phonyms and animating just requires changing the mouths, SIMPLE.

I AM HAVING SERIOUS PROBLEMS with the movements for my characters "walk" even though ive done it before it seemed to be working at first, but now its not.so I decided to look at some examples of characters walks on the internet.
i found one good example where small pins where used to hold the characters feet in place, if most professional animators do this then its no wonder I was having trouble.

maybe if I could use this method i wouldnt have to smear my characters feet into the ground of my set, the armature has already snapped on the right shoulder and elbow...

maybe I have been using the wrong technique.

i should know how to make a character walk by now..... i tried to find some walk cycles like the one above, but its just not the right sort for my skinny legged alice character.