Hello, I too am struggling tremendously with gesture, even though at first it seems like it should be "intuitive" and perhaps even quite approachable for someone with little prior experience. Personally, I am treating Stan's gestures as a style in their own right. After reading some comments and feedback below, I think limiting yourself to 5 lines is a good thing to try. Practise along with Stan's examples and try to learn the different line shapes he uses, like S and C curves. He has his own way of capturing a pose, and I'm still learning how these seemingly "simple" lines convey so much information. Start with the head, then think about how the spine curves. Even if you don't know detailed human anatomy (I certainly don't), there is an obvious "shape" to each pose. Usually the model is balancing on one of their legs, so look for how their torso joins into the thigh and consider using a single line to indicate that flow. Not everything is equally important though and you'll notice that Stan often finishes the lower half of the legs and the feet with very minimal detail, just a flick in the general direction. Something I've found helpful is to keep in mind how every curvy line you put on paper contributes to the "flow" of the figure. No boxes and no outlines (these trap the flow). I like to imagine water flowing between the lines. From reading more about gesture, it seems that knowing more about anotomy will improve your gesture drawing, so my takeaway from that is that given that I haven't studied anatomy (yet), I need to focus on creating flowing drawings even if they don't look "good". It's a foundational practise exercise at the end of the day.

As I understand it, gesture drawings are for distilling the movement or flow of a pose into its most basic expression, similar to how we do the same for forms and shapes. Then once we have distilled that essence, we build on top again. The exercises help to train your hand and eye to focus only on the most important aspects, and avoid distracting details at this stage. They are great for practicing and experimenting with poses and flow without getting too bogged down in details. That said I too am a beginner, so my understanding may be flawed or incomplete.

hi Aiden! I'm a beginner as well, but I would have to agree with the other comment. It looks like your figures are a bit stiff. You are focusing more on the detail and contour than the the flow of movement. Also, something many beginners get caught up in (myself included) is getting too attached to making a pretty picture. Gesture drawings are for exercise, not intended to be a finished piece. So try to allow yourself to be a little more loose, make a LOT of un-pretty drawings, loosen up a bit more, and focus much more on the line of action than any of the superficial details. Hope that was helpful.