Attack animation and applyImpulse do not like each other...

My goal is to a) have a character stop moving, b) play an attack animation and c) move in the direction he is attacking.

I have got both a) and b) working. I simply use the function:
%player.setMaxSpeed(0.0, 0.0, 0.0) to stop movement and then use
%obj.setArmThreadPlayOnce(%attack.seqName) to have the attack play out.

The problem is with part c), trying to get the player to move in the direction he is attacking. I am currently using the %obj.applyImpulse(...) function to push the player in the direction he is facing, but I am having problems with this. When the force is applied, the player does move forward, but his run animation also plays which interferes with the attack animation.

Basically, I am looking for a way to move the player forward that doesn't play the run animation, or a way to use the applyImpulse(...) function but then stop the run animation from playing...

By the way, blend animations are not an option as the attack is a full body animation, which prohibits it from blending with a run (or anything else really...)

Thank you very much in advance for you help!