Double Attack

[gotrocks]

Hey folks,

I'm a complete Melee newbie, the most melee combat i participated in on my Shaman on live involved poking things with a spear for the first few levels and then after that i tended to stay away from it for obvious reasons (though I will admit that Shaman's are pretty OP and do far better than they should in Melee).

So now I have an Iksar monk, and am having an absolute blast - he kicks some serious ass. But I do have one big question: How does double attack work?

I know that its essential to our class whether we are dual wielding or not, but how exactly does it function? And how does Dual Wield work? How do skill-ups affect these skills? I really know nothing about either. I have drawn a few conclusions based on watching my combat log very closely, but still feel largely in the dark about whats going on. It seems like the dual wield skill-ups affect how many times i swing my second weapon, but I dont know that for sure. It also seems the higher my double attack skill the more often I swing twice with a weapon. But can i get a double attack on both my main hand and off hand in the same round (effectively giving me 4 attacks in a round)? How does double attack work when using a 2hb?

Two more quick things:
1) Right now im using 2 fighting batons (8/20) weapons in both hands, when I hit 20 I have a wu's quivering staff waiting for me (20/28? i think), using the quivering staff is the clear winner, right? Would appreciate input on that. Also, the staff is quite heavy, and even with the relatively light weight of the fighting batons, I find myself over 14 lbs (or is it 14 stone?) quite often. How important is it to be under 14lbs? Does it affect more than just AC? Do I need to lose some of my heavier gear (for example, iksar scaled gloves weighing 4 whole lbs, or my carrion beetle legggings weighing 3? the rest of my stuff is pretty much all cured silk)

2) whats a good place for a monk to *solo* 19-25ish? Or is it better to just group in unrest?

Thanks in advance for all your help. everyone here seems to know 100x more than I do about DPS classes, so I hope ill get some ansers soon!