Like I learned the principle of “soft defense against hard attacks, hard defense against soft attacks” from like a 1993 article on post-Mortal Kombat fighting games and I think I just grokked it

And in my vision it has to do with the tradeoff between force and precision, if someone comes at you with a really forceful attack, rather than block and check it directly you’re better off diverting it a bit to the side where it doesn’t hit anything vulnerable

But if someone comes at you crafty, keeping their options open to target your vulnerability, it can be best to blitz them and force them onto the reactive