Learnin' with Fish: Super Cool Gif Art (The Ed Helms Experience)

Yes, that's exactly right. Of course, you don't have to do it that way, that's just the way that I've found works best for me. It gets the effect going faster and smoother, respectively, than [1], [2], [3] or [1], [1], [1], as you put 'em, but it all comes down to personal preference in the end; there are thousands of different ways to make an animation like this feel, through implementing very minor changes in the procedure, and practice is the only way to settle on the feeling that you like the most.