Chap. 14 Help! - Jittery Idle Animation

I just started doing the animation sequences on my hero model doing the Idle animation (pg. 451-452 in the book). I am doing what the book says (set keyframe to this... that... rotate forward/back 5 degrees) and my keyframes look exactly the way I want them. The problem is once I start animating my hero after all has been said and done he goes very slowly and jittery in the animation sequence... I know it's not something wrong with my computer as I got a perfectly smooth animation to work a day or two ago. I aslo don't think it has anything to do with the joints and the vectors that they are connected to (tested this multiple times and all joints are/seem properly connected with no problems). I was wondering if there is any reasonable explanation for this or if it is easy to fix... unless you suggest I totally redo my hero (bleh, hope not... ;-) ).
Thanks in advance for you time!