Learn how to unlock stances and their skills in Dokkōdō by using Kyoto’s dojo, building stance mastery, and completing training challenges for each fighting style.
To unlock a stance in Dokkōdō, go to the Dojo in Kyoto, sit down and learn the base fighting style, then choose and learn one of the four stances — and unlock that stance’s individual skills separately by grinding stance mastery and clearing the dojo’s training challenges.
Stances in Dokkōdō trip people up because they’re a two-phase system, and the two phases are easy to mix up. First you acquire a stance at the dojo in Kyoto — that’s a quick sit-down-and-learn affair. Then you unlock that stance’s skills, which is a slower grind through mastery and timed dojo trials. Buying or learning a stance does not hand you all of its moves, so if you’ve got a stance equipped but only one usable skill, you’re not stuck — you just haven’t finished the second phase yet.
How to learn a stance at the Kyoto dojo
Go to the dojo
Open your map, travel to the Dojo icon in Kyoto, and head inside.
Take a seat
Sit down at the training spot to open the fighting-style menu.
Learn the base art
Learn the base Ryu fighting style first — it's the framework every stance plugs into, and you can learn it instantly.
Scroll to the stance list
Scroll down past the base art to see the four stances you can choose from.
Select a stance and press Learn
Highlight the stance you want, then press Learn on the right side of the panel.
Check the requirements
Before you confirm, the panel shows the Moon cost and the Dojo Experience requirement for that stance.
Remember that owning a stance is not the same as having its skills — once a stance is learned, head back out and farm stance mastery at the Student Ambush event to actually unlock its moves.
The four Dokkōdō stances and how many skills each holds
| Stance | Skills | Notes / role |
|---|---|---|
| Hayazo | 2 | A common starter pick with a full pair of skills to unlock. |
| Giden | 2 | Also carries two skills. |
| Jōdan | 2 | Two skills; its training challenges are the best-documented so far. |
| Chūdan | 0 | Carries no skills and is the weakest of the four. |
There are four stances in total, and they’re not equal — the number of skills each one carries is the main thing to weigh before you pour mastery into one. Three of the four hold two skills apiece, while the fourth is a bare-bones option. If you want the most to work with, lean toward one of the two-skill stances; the empty one is the weakest pick.
A quick spelling note: the stance names here are caught largely by ear, so treat them as approximate — Hayazo, Giden, and the base stance that sounds like “Trudeon” is almost certainly Chūdan. There’s also a passive that sounds like Iai-kiri (the audio comes across as “Li Kiri”) which you can learn separately by pressing Learn on the right side if you meet its requirements — though both its exact name and its unlock conditions are unconfirmed.
Raising stance mastery and clearing training challenges
Farm stance mastery outside the dojo
Trigger the recurring Student Ambush event just outside the Kyoto dojo and win it with your chosen stance equipped.
Bank enough mastery to max the stance
Keep repeating the event until you’ve stored enough mastery points for the stance you’re working on.
Spend mastery inside the dojo
Go back in, sit down at the training area, select your stance, and spend mastery to learn its skills.
Clear each skill’s training challenge
Every skill is gated behind a timed dojo trial against a trainer that you have to beat to actually unlock the move.
On the numbers — and these come from a single set of early reports, so hold them loosely — the Student Ambush respawns roughly every minute, and you earn about 0.25 mastery each successful cycle, with around 4 points needed to max a stance. That works out to maxing a stance in under about 30 minutes of clean runs. One catch that’s easy to miss: the mastery is only credited when the Ronin dies and the student wins the ambush, so if you break that pattern you stall your own gains.
For the actual trials, the Jōdan stance is the only one documented in detail right now. Its first skill asks you to disarm the trainer once by breaking his guard — keep striking his block until it breaks — and then beat him before the time limit runs out. The second skill ramps it up: disarm him twice, parry several of his attacks, land an overhead strike to break guard, and finish him again inside the limit. The other stances have similar mini-tests, but their exact conditions aren’t fully nailed down yet.
Video help
Mistakes that stall stance progress
The big one is treating a learned stance as a finished stance. Acquiring it only gives you the basics — if you never go back to grind mastery and clear the dojo trials, your full move set just sits there locked. The second common slip is in the Student Ambush itself: because mastery only lands when the Ronin dies and the student wins, players who jump in and kill the wrong target slow their own farming to a crawl.
Best stance, fast mastery farming, and later dojo content
Beyond stances, the dojo has more to it: players point to Dojo Storm and longer trainer quests that gate later progression and feed into higher-level unlocks. Those details are still emerging and not fully verified, so go in expecting some of it to shift as the game updates.
Related Dokkodo guides
Frequently Asked Questions
What’s the difference between unlocking a stance and unlocking its skills?
Unlocking a stance happens at the dojo — you learn the base art and then learn the stance itself, which gives you the basics. Unlocking that stance’s skills is a separate, slower phase: you grind stance mastery from the Student Ambush event and beat a timed dojo trial for each skill. Owning the stance does not automatically give you its moves.
How much do stances cost — money or Robux?
Stances are bought with in-game money; the panel shows a Moon cost and a Dojo Experience requirement when you go to learn one. The exact price per stance isn’t shown in any current footage, so individual stance costs remain unverified. Bounty contracts pay roughly 250 money each, which is a common way to fund early purchases. There’s no verified Robux price for stances or stance gamepasses — any exact Robux cost is unconfirmed.
How long does it take to fully max a stance?
By early players’ numbers, you can max a stance in under about 30 minutes of efficient Student Ambush runs, earning roughly 0.25 mastery per successful cycle toward the ~4 points needed. Treat those figures as a single-source estimate that may change.
Which stance is best, and which should I avoid?
Avoid Chūdan — it carries no skills and is the weakest. The other three (Hayazo, Giden, Jōdan) each hold two skills, making them the stronger investments, though a firm best-stance tier list is still being worked out.
Is there a “Sheckles” currency in Dokkōdō?
No. Dokkōdō uses ordinary in-game money, and “Sheckles” doesn’t appear anywhere in the game — that term comes from a different game entirely and shouldn’t factor into how you plan your stance purchases.
