Posture acts similarly to Stamina in the Souls series, providing the player with the capacity to block and deflect attacks.
Much like Bleeding or Poison buildup in other Souls games, a Posture bar fills up to indicate posture is being used. Blocking and Deflecting attacks fill the character's Posture gauge, as does taking head-on damage.

• While deflection does a small amount of posture damage to the defender, it does a high amount of posture damage to the attacker. Performing successful deflects can fill your posture bar to full, but it never breaks your posture.
  
• Performing several deflects in quick succession does more posture damage to an enemy.
  
• Blocking and taking damage fills the defender's posture gauge and does not affect the attacker, though an attacker cannot regain their own Posture while they are attacking.

If Posture is close to breaking, the bar will flash orange. If the posture bar reaches max capacity, the player or enemy becomes vulnerable:

• If Sekiro reaches his posture threshold, he is staggered and unable to defend for a brief period, rendering him vulnerable to attack. While posture broken incoming attacks will do significantly more damage to Sekiro (more testing has to be done). The period can be made much shorter by pressing the Step Dodge or Jump button, which executes a safety roll that provides a decent amount of invulnerability frames.
  
• By contrast, if enemies reach their posture threshold, the player can perform a Deathblow on them. If player doesn't do it within a few seconds, the enemy will recover a small portion of their posture and the fight will continue.
  
• Sekiro's posture can't be broken by regular attacks if he deflects them, even if his bar is full.

Some attacks that flash a red kanji, called Perilous Attacks, cannot be blocked. Performing the appropriate counter to them can deal massive Posture damage.
Shinobi Firecrackers deal significant posture damage to animals, including Guardian Ape. The damage is dealt on every use, independent of stagger.

• Sekiro's posture generally starts to recover slowly after not taking posture damage for about a second. Enemy posture doesn't have this delay. That said, posture cannot be regained while attacking, sprinting, grappling or being staggered. Shinobi Firecrackers can stop posture recovery of some enemies for several seconds; this effect lasts much longer than the stagger effect of the Firecrackers.
  
• Sekiro can greatly speed up posture recovery by holding up his Guard while avoiding enemy attacks.
  
• Recovery rate of posture depends on how full the vitality gauge is, and the posture gauge will flash red if vitality damage is limiting posture regeneration.

Players can increase their posture gauge by collecting 4 Prayer Beads (there are 40 beads in total, see the individual page to see where to find them) and using them at a Sculptor's Idol. This means that the players will have a larger pool of posture that must be filled before it is broken. Up to 40 Prayer Beads can be collected, granting the player a maximum of 10 health boosts, each of which increase Vitality and Posture by +20% for a total boost of +200%.

Some Quick Items grant temporary posture effects. These can be a buff for Sekiro's own posture, or increase the amount of damage done to an enemy's posture gauge:

• Ako's Sugar: Upgrades posture damage dealt to enemies
  
• Ako's Spiritfall: Upgrades posture damage dealt to enemies
  
• Gokan's Sugar: Reduces posture damage taken by Sekiro
  
• Sweet Rice Ball: Constant posture recovery
  
• Ungo's Sugar: Assists in posture recovery by reducing Vitality damage taken by Sekiro

Skills can give upgrades that boost Sekiro's ability to inflict posture damage in battle, reduce the amount of posture damage he suffers, or recover lost posture.

Shinobi Martial Arts:

• Mikiri Counter - Counters Enemy Thrust Attacks, dealing a large amount of damage to posture.

Latent (Passive) Skills:

• Shinobi Eyes - Increases the damage inflicted to posture upon executing a successful Mikiri counter (Shinobi Arts)
  
• Ascending Carp - Increases damage inflicted to enemy posture from a successful Deflection (Ashina Arts tree)
  
• Descending Carp - For a few seconds after Deflection, increases damage to enemy posture from ALL sources (Ashina Arts Tree)
  
• Flowing Water - Reduces the amount of posture damage you receive when attacked by an enemy wielding a Sword. (Ashina Arts Tree)
  
• Breath of Nature: Light - Restores Posture upon executing a successful Deathblow (Ashina Arts Tree)
  
• Breath of Nature: Shadow - Same as its Light counterpart. (Found by beating the Armored Warrior in Senpou Temple)

Combat Arts:

• Ichimonji / Ichimonji: Double - A Combat Art that delivers a heavy, one-hit over head strike. Deals high posture damage and also recovers one's own posture with a strong forward step. (Ashina Arts)
  
• Senpou Leaping Kicks / High Monk - A Combat Art that begins with a leaping kick. This attack can counter Air Attacks AND Sweeping Attacks to deal extremely high posture damage. (Temple Arts)