Head Effects Legs Too Much

When my puppet moves his head around, it makes his legs move a little too, like he's swaying. I've taken the "Head Position" and "Head Tilt" strengths down, but I don't want to sacrifice expresiveness just to keep the legs from being affected so much. I have some "Fixed" sticks at the bottom of my character's body, but that doesn't help. I imagine part of my problem is the character's legs are about half-hidden behind the torso, and so those body parts are being affected due to their shared space with the bendy torso. 

I like my rigging (legs independent, tagged and whatnot) , I just need a way for the legs to not move with the body.