How do I get in the hit recovery animation:
Basically you end up in that animation whenever you take a hit that takes away more then 1/12th of your maximum life.
Also every char got specific caps to improve the animation. Every cap improves the animation by 1 frame. Check out the char specific for more details on these caps.
So... we want to avoid as much time in that animation thats why FHR is important. Every char has a certain amount of base frames he needs for that animation and it can be improved by items with FHR.
You might not think that 1 or 2 frames are a huge difference, but when you get more and more experienced and had runs with slow hit recovery you will change your mind.