Staff Animation issue resolved

After solving the staff planting problem, I realised that just having the arm as IK and the staff parented to the arm controller didn't fully resolve my problem for the way I want the animation to work. I intend the staff to sway from side to side whilst the body moves back and forth; the staff at the moment can only rotate from the wrist location, and so although it doesn't move up and down any more it still moves out of place at the bottom when I rotate it.

To allow it to move side to side whilst the bottom remains in place, I selected the rig's arm control at the wrist and changed its centre pivot to be placed at the bottom of the staff by snapping it to the staff's bottom most polygon. You can see the results below. This set up only works for this particular animation - once I start on my other animations I will set the pivot back in place with the wrist.

Pivot at the wrist.

Pivot at the bottom of the staff.