Leashing is just when you thump the minion and run, it will chase you for a bit.  You leash blue for Warwick or whoever, run off, and he kills it half dead before it stops trying to kill you and smacks him back.

Jungling is all about a sustained presence.  You need to be able to absorb the damage you're taking and just keep going.  With a full set of level 30 runes, basically anyone with a vampiric scepter can jungle.  Laning is about avoiding damage and hen pecking your opponents out of position, either by killing them off or sending them home, either way they lose xp.  You can't avoid your damage as a jungler, you're the only target.  The recommended junglers are all because they have good ways to turn minions into health.  Akali can be a good jungler too, just take crescent slash and the starting sword and you have your 10 attack needed for 10% spell vamp.

Start a custom game, fill it with ai, play a guy that can restore health, and just try it out at your leisure.  That's all an AI game is good for really, the bots are too dumb to be a challenge.

yup - leashing is ez.  If you feel crazy weak, you can even ask someone to leash golum for you.  The main adv is that the creeps target whoever attacked first, so you get some free hits in while they chase whoever attacked first.  I'd even go so far as to help you kill if needed.  The main thing for a jungler, though, is getting as much XP as possible while you work the jungle - so if I'm standing nearby, we split some xp if any die while I'm there.  So, its almost always best to have someone just hit for you and run. 

Most people in games understand what "I need a leash on BLANK" means, even at lower levels.  So just ask when the game starts and u should be set.

Happy to help you with some basic jungle routes.  Let me know who you are planning on using and we'll play sometime soon.

Heheh, thats what I thought but I had someone freaking out on me the other day that I didn't properly leash the Lizard King for him so I figured there must be something more to it than hitting once and walking away.

The rest of the game had our Jax player yelling at him that he was the worst WW ever so I guess I should have judged the source.

Thanks Pacov, I'll probably take you up on the offer soon.

He was probably less than capable of taking it down and wanted you to smack it a few more times.  I had some tard pull that a while back.  Went at blue off the start, and died because he only bothered to mention he needed more help after I was already back in lane...

It takes all kinds.

heh - yeah.  I suppose we all have to start learning somewhere.    When I was trying to learn to jungle, I just started by playing a few 1v1 custom games against bots.  That way, I wouldn't look like a complete idiot if I died to blue, etc.  Unfortunately, this meant I couldn't start on blue as I wouldn't have a leash, but I just worked some of the alternate paths to see how much damage I could absorb, how long I had between smites, etc.

I jungle most of the time when I play ranked (for example, I have almost 250 ranked games worth of WW), so I'll say a few things about it:

In general, dont take a jungle route if you absolutely NEED a leash.  If you really need the leash that badly, you will probably get very low on hp.  That means that any kind of counter jungling will stomp you.  You usually want to make sure that you have enough health at all points on your jungle path to at least be able to flash away if you get counter jungled.  Getting killed on your first path is just too crippling to risk.

For solo queue pickup games, just going blue to wolves to wraiths to red to little golems is usually best.  Its not the fastest route for hitting level 6, but it frees you up for ganks the fastest.  Typically I want to be available to help out my lanes as early as possible.  In more organized games where you can trust your lanes, you may want to take other routes that let you level faster.

Some junglers (Amumu for example) can't safely do red on that route (he can get it, but will be VERY low on hp if he tries).  Thats fine - skip red, go back after clearing little golems, get boots, do red, then start ganking.  Its a bit slower, but you get to be ganking with red and boots, so its not a horrible tradeoff.

Stonewall on the Reign of Gaming blog (google it) is an experienced jungler who posts about jungling all the time, including tutorials.  I dont agree with all his opinions (in fact, I think that he is wrong about a lot of stuff), but watching his stuff is a really solid intro to jungling. 

Good tips - thx!

Ugh, seems the luck of the Carbon has gone out.

Losing streaks sucks.

We should play... it sadly just occurred to me tonight that you are carbon in my friends list.  Was wondering who that was. 

Anyway, think I had a full night of wins.  Played again with sarmis and his boys.  Still maining akali and getting better.  I HATE 1v1 against singed, though.  Quite painful for akali if singed is good. 

i have no idea what you are talking about or who you are

he's the original robertmunch  (side note - takes you 3 weeks to read his post?  heh).  Anyway, if bobby gets attacked, bobby is welcome to defend himself. 

That said, back to my lol blahblahblah.

I'm still maining akali.  Starting to get sick of it (even in dg, I could never stand playing the same character more than like 10-20 games in a row or w/e).  I'm sure I'm past that number with akali.  I figure with like 70 + characters, getting really good with one will be a smart decision for ranked games (think I'm only level 23 or 24 now.. almost there anyway).  Starting to play more and more games with different folks to see who I have good chemistry with as I really want to tear things up on the ranked scene (and not linger in elo hell).  I'm prob 2-4 weeks out from ranked games anyway, though. 

Nothing super exciting to report - got to play a few with max tonight - fun games.  Played some with sarmis and some pug.  One pug was annoying as crap.  We had a "shot caller" on the team that was an idiot.  We are up like 11 to 1. We even get one player on the other team to RQ.  Then this idiot wants to do NOTHING (literally nothing else) but push mid at 11 min in with no tank etc.  And what happens, over and over, is that the team gets killed.  Yet he wants to continue this amazing strategy.  This is a guy that rushes in when I'm grabbing red, a teammate says wait for akali, and he pushes anyway, then whines to the team after getting the 4 at mid killed... smeh.  Anyway, should have been a cake win, but the whole damn team just died over and over again (with me getting anyway with like 100 hp for the most part)...sigh.  Dumb player.  Dump people listening to him as well. 

A few comments about ranked since you say you want to transition into it:

Team composition is A LOT more important in ranked.  In normal people generally dont care too much.  So if you take that second AP carry or whatever, people arent going to be upset and it wont be a big deal.  But in ranked the team comp not only matters, but if you make a strange pick, people are going to yell at you for doing it.

So that means that you MUST be able to play multiple champs in all categories if you want to do well in ranked.  That means at least 2 tanks, at least 2 AP Carries, at least 2 AD carries, at least 2 junglers, and at least 2 supports.  Obviously there are some overlap in that champs can fill multiple categories, but you have to be able to cover your bases.

Now Akali has some flexibility in that she can take either solo lane and can jungle.  So you can cover quite a few bases by being good at Akali (I do the same thing with WW - I can play him a hell of a lot in ranked because he can do a lot of things).  But if you want to hit the ground running in ranked, you should learn to play more champs. 

Good tips.  Thx karl.

working on jung akali now.  Good tips. 

I'm trying to get a head start on trying to learn at least a few champs in different categories while I'm playing low level games since there's not so much... agro-ness right now.

I found a good Mobafire guide that I'm using as a quick reference for which guys fulfill which role for the more obscure champs people end up picking so I know what positions are already likely taken on my team.

http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build/5-champs-you-should-know-how-to-play-aka-who-do-i-buy-next-70445