Preventing the tool hold animation when equipping tool?

I'd like to over ride the character animation, in which the character raises its arm with the tool, with my own custom animation.

Additionally, how do I make it so that when the character transitions to the animation track, it will smoothly move to that track will tween from original position to initial animationtrack position.

Would need two animations then I'm guessing. Both animations with higher priority (I always use action priority) than the default animation. The first animation that plays would be the rising arms animation which you can make that any speed so it would look smooth. Then the 2nd animation is a looped animation of the last keyframe of the rising arms animation so it'll keep the arms raised.