pls help with walk cycle. Can't get consistent results, everything rigged and working otherwise

Hey folks,

    I'm making some characters with the walk/stand technique. it's not rocket science but there are a lot of layers. I have the 5 sideways head turns and the 3 bodies for left and right walking and standing. It all works ALMOST perfect I followed the 'walker' puppet pretty close at first to make sure I got the rigging right. So now it looks great but every time I hit the walk direction the legs pop out to an arbitrary place to hinge from, I don't understand why it's so inconsisent and whats determining the start point anymore. I'll post a video and still of it to see what I mean. It looks fine at first but you'll see that at random points the front leg will pop out to way in front of the puppet. I've moved the hips, the belly point, the neck, the entire legs and arms, I've trimmed the puppet over and over to be neat and in line, nothing seems to get me just a smooth walk cycle that's the same looking every time. Any ideas? Does the arm placement and pivot point make a difference? Maybe my feet tags need to move? length of bones help? I'm stuck.