The body knows what to do to survive.
The mind is much slower than the body’s instincts and the mind makes a lot of mistakes.
It’s not good if the mind overrides the instinct.
However, you need the mind to defend, because instincts know just to survive.
Therefore, the instinct* is leading the movement, use the mind to modify the instinct, according to the situation**.

* Bruce Lee said: ‘Empty your mind’.
** it may be necessary to strike, it may be necessary just to control somebody, it may be a mistake & you need to mask it for another movement. ?