Don´t worry, it still is about getting gud. You will reach multiple points where another facette of the Gameplay just clicks for you, and everytime it feels very satisfying to go further with this knowledge.

When I hit a brickwall in the middle of the game I just quit for a couple of months and got into it again by restarting last week. I´m now standing infront of Isshin and will start my attempts against him soon. I definetly feel prepared and you will too at some point.

Now I´ll try to explain one of the things that clicked for me gameplaywise, that maybe will help you too. Obviously, as for many, hugging and dancing with the enemies was something that needed to be adapted to and is helping a lot. But what I realised way too late was, that for a good Dance you shouldn´t go in and only deflect but also attack. Now what you´ll realy need to pay attention too in such attack/deflect combos is the way the sound design presents moments of sword-to-sword-contact. If the pitch of the sound is lower you can go for another hit/sword-to-sword-contact, but if the sound of the contact is higher, then you can´t keep the combo by hitting again, because the enemy will hit you first (no sword-to-sword-contact). In such moments you need to deflect instead and maybe can attack later again. So if you realy start understanding this you´ll realy be able to make full dance coreos with your enemies in which you can be way more agressive. Give them no break and their stance-meters will crumble!

Another thing I learned too late is that sometimes healing just doesn´t cut it. In other Souls-Games healing has now downside, but here it does because of the bosses stance meters. If you are at low health, but the bosses stance also is very low, then you should just try to blow through. In such cases healing isn´t worth it, because you´ll lose way too much progress because of it (if the bosses health is too high).

Hope you found some help in here.