I personally don't recommend the old Iron Flesh technique. It doesn't allow you to learn the fight properly, and once you reach NG+, iron flesh won't help you one bit so you'll have to learn the boss far later than necessary.
As Madonna said some semi-upgraded chainmail would work fine. Blocking will only serve to make the fight more difficult, so learn how to dodge the attacks the boss throws at you. At that point it's all a damage race. Power within as previously stated works quite well once you can reliably dodge the boss. Wear a grass crest shield on your back, and just wail on the boss with your biggest baddest weapon. The hardest part of the boss for me is the screwed up depth perception.