Animation Hiccup

Newbie & Debugging Questions
#1

Hi, this is my first post to Java-Gaming (Newbie alert),
and I’m having a little trouble with Animation,
I used a custom 2D Animation class for a game I am working on
and the animation of the sprite runs well, it’s just
When I first move up, the sprite disappears for a split second, then reappears,
same results when I move down. It’s only the initial press of the keys, after that, the animation is smooth,
oddly enough, the right/left movement doesn’t have the hiccup on the first press of the keys.
Any idea what could be the cause for this?
Hope I explained it well-enough, if not, let me know!
Note: I am only using the standard Java libraries

Here’s the Animation class (runAnimation() is called in ‘update’, drawAnimation() is called in ‘render’):



import java.awt.Graphics;
import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;

public class Animation {

	private int animSpeed; //Animation speed. 
	private int count = 0; //Works with the animSpeed, to control the animation speed. 
	private int frames; //Number of frames in the animation. 
	private int index = 0; //Current frame. 
	private BufferedImage[] animation;
	private BufferedImage currentImage; //The current image in the animation. 
	
	public Animation(BufferedImage[] images, int speed) {
		animation = images;
		animSpeed = speed;
		frames = animation.length;
	}

	public void runAnimation() {
		count++;
		
		if(count > animSpeed)
		{
			count = 0; 
			currentImage = animation[index % frames]; //Change the image for drawAnimation. 
		    index++; //For next image. 	
		}
	}
	
	public void drawAnimation(Graphics g, int x, int y, int scaleX, int scaleY) {
		g.drawImage(currentImage, x, y, scaleX, scaleY, null);
	}	
}