What will be your 8 animations?
If I had to do myself a state logic for multiple animations on a player, I would do a global variable with a string.
In short, the initial value will be "idle". So, all your animation will be states like for example "jump", "fall", "hit", "attack", "protect", etc. All triggerable by keys or events or whatever you want them to get triggers.
Then, inside a group (in the event sheet), you check:
if the global variable value is "idle", then play idle animation.
if the global variable value is "run", then play the run animation.
And go on.
Do you think this idea can fit your needs?