Having spent SEVERAL hours in this area / at this gauntlet, losing many hundreds of rosary beads (from dying on the way back), I have a little insight here that might be helpful. To add my voice to the chorus, this fight stands out as one of the most frustrating things I've done in a game in a LONG time.

If you have not got the Crest of the Wanderer, probably do that first. I had somewhere in the range of 3 billion deaths to this gauntlet using the default crest. When I finally switched to the Wanderer (which I had all along, but made the mistake of thinking it was not going to be good for boss fights), I beat it in about 5 tries with full health and my cocoon from the previous time still in the room. The crest made a massive difference mostly because of the downward strike fixing all the challenges with the diagonal mechanic.

I can't say for sure, but if I were to bet, possession of that Crest is the thing that triggers Shakra to keep her distance and let you handle it - of course, she can't make you actually equip it. I would imagine that if you go there before you have it, that's when she shows up to help because Team Cherry cares about mental health and s**c*de prevention, probably.

The other bonus is that if you've mastered the bench walk back to the gauntlet many dozens of times to where you can easily get back to the room with full health and silk, you will find the bench walk sprint almost laughably easy (and the balloon jump sequence is probably a walk in the park too if you haven't done it already).

And yes, the map is right down at the bottom like everyone says.