hey Mogui,
best pieces of advice given to me in becoming a puppeteer. Hmmm....
1) Just do it. Sitting at home watching the Muppets it's nice but you don't learn anything that way. Even if it's real amateurish at the start..it's a start and the first step is always the hardest. It's 10X easier for me to build a puppet than it was when I started building 9 years ago. But I knew I had to take the first step in order to get here now. it's like learnign to play piano. You learn scales and then you learn a song.
2) get involved in Puppeteers of America and if your area has a puppetry guild, join it!! You'll met a lot of people with a ton of history and they (most of them) are very willing to help give advice.
3) Learn Everything!!! Science, History, Social Studies, Literature, Painting, Drawing, Acting, Sculpture, Dance, Music, Woodwork, it all comes up eventually. Reading is good. A few people here have heard this story I think, but I once spent 3 months in Phoenix with the clothes on my back and an air mattress to sleep on and the only thing I had to do for entrtainment was listen to my clock radio and read books from the local library. I learned so much that summer. my puppet company now could not exist without it.
Those are I think the three best pieces of advice. It sounds daunting but in the end it's really it's own reward. It's the greatest job in the world!! And as you see your own progress it's gives you a real feeling of accoplishment. I'd be interested to hear some other puppeteers thoughts in here on this subject. Hope this helps answer your question.
--Matt