Training your pawn properly: Is my pawn retarded, or am I?

Currently my pawn is a bit hesitant when it comes to joining battles. She is a fighter with Scather/Util, using Dragon's Maw, Blitz Strike and Flesh Skewer, with no shield skills. Decked out in mostly 2/3 star gears, and has some nice 2 stars bestiary knowledge across the board.

The problem is that in combat, she either walks slowly, run around and ignoring the enemy for a moment before she actually participates in battle, or she just walks up to the enemy and auto-attacks. Instead of Blitz Striking to an enemy, she walks around them before doing so. Sometimes on low health enemy, she uses Dragon's Maw.

I understand that the Pawn's AI is mainly dictated by their inclinations, and how they simply do actions x depending on their primary or secondary flags. But I've also read posts around here that suggest that sometimes pawn copy/modify their actions to the arisen's behaviour.

How true is this? If it is so, then that means I might have to train my pawn properly. What can I do as a fighter to encourage my pawn to become more active in battle? Does it simply boil down to just 'use the attack you want them to use'? In fact, sometimes when I do teach them the right things with just me and my pawn, they become more slow paced with other hired pawns. What can I do to make sure that certain behaviours are much more lasting and remembered?

Thanks!