Misogi Room at NY Aikido Center

I would like to take a moment to introduce the newly constructed Misogi Room at our NY Aikido Center Dojo. Many years have passed since I was introduced to Misogi, a much-alluded to, yet seldom practiced ritual that was so much a part of O-Sensei's daily life. We have been treated to many stories over the years [please see http://www.aikidojournal.com/articles/_article.asp?ArticleID=213 as an example] and I have heard many anecdotes directly from Abe Sensei, about the important relationship between Misogi and Aikido as told to him directly by the Founder of Aikido, himself. Misogi is well known as a set of ascetic ritual purification practices. Many religious sects around the world have some form of purification rituals involving water. There are even teachers today that share this aspect of misogi with their students, teaching that O-Sensei was a proponent of Misogi.

In one sense, while there is a definite spiritual component to be found in the repetition of any particularly difficult practice, it is very easy to miss the meaning as to what misogi is, how it relates to Aikido, or even get lost in the religious underpinnings of the ritual, itself. However, as I have been instructed, misogi can also be looked at as a purely physical set of forms, or kata to use a term that may better serve to illustrate my point, that contain a single, common point of focus. The common point upon which each form hinges is kokyu which literally means,