you play just like me aha, always walking towards and getting in the enemies face. i liked to use the stab through the firecrackers too, helped me beat shura gauntlet.
Yesterday, I did this fight for the first time on charmless demon bell. I did it in one go as normal father is relatively easy, though definitely not as clean as this was cause I had to heal like 3 times and it took like 10 min because am not aggressive in owl fights lol. I would say charmless demonbell makes sekiro more fun(at least with the main bosses....minibosses are still a bit...nah fam.) because you actually have to pay attention to what and when they do now.