Animation Realism

To illustrate what I mean when I've used the terms realism and believability in the past here is an adjustment I made to the struck animation which I did to make it more real.

This first video is the movement I had the character do with his arms when recovering from the struck action. It's left arm moves away from the staff without much effort put into it, and makes a fairly linear movement from one key to the next.

To improve on the animations exaggeration and believability I deleted the last few frames I just made and redid them so that there is a little anticipation stemming from the collar bone and shoulder, which pushes down on the staff and then allows the arm to follow through and move away.