12 Principles - 2 Anticipation

"Anticipation is preparation" when a character is achieving a certain movement, due to physical of human body there is a preparation movement which is towards the opposite side of the movement force itself. In the example I picked, the movement of the rabbit is the punch to the dog, the anticipation movement is him pulling back his arm with the center of gravity on the left feet, in order to gain the energy for the major movement, which in here is the punch.

Similar to this sample, nearly every single movement have anticipation, for example before start running, we shrink the body to the back and then start running. Especially in animation, anticipation indicates the next movement of the character, often exaggerated to create dramatic effect.