Kenshin's head

In early episodes, Kenshin was portrayed as a weak fighter when compared to Jin-ei and Saito. This led to the guy going to his hitokiri side, losing his kindness and even way of speaking. I found this weird until Hiko finished training him when he explains that his mind was a big mess as he never used his entire strength due to not valuing his life and being consumed by his darker side. However, when Kenshin is afraid of death, he is said to have surpassed his hitokiri side as he is now using his entire strength when fighting. Did I get it right? Netflix just added season 2 and I was kinda confused by Hiko's fast speech when Kenshin learned the ogi.