yeah, don't stay up partying all night and drinking those "caffeinated energy" drinks. You'll have shakes worse than a crack fiend.
On a more serious note.. do what everyone else mentioned: practice. Conditions are important as well. If you are in adverse condition with serious wind chop or maybe just on a busy lake it can be pretty tough.
I also find that people asking this question have those really, really small camcorders. They are great for traveling, but because they are so small it's harder to keep steady. What Brinks is talking about is this:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/steadycam/ By using a counterweight equal to the weight of the camera you can help smooth out that bumpy footage. Though it's not the holly grail, you will still need to practice using this before you get decent footage.
It's all about the flow...