What is misogi and why do we practice?

“An important practice from the Shinto tradition, misogi-no-kokyu-ho may be translated as purification through breathing.

Training is arduous, emotionally straining, and physically exhausting. Yet it is a unique opportunity to break through self-imposed limitations and egoistic personality defences.

With the intense stimulation of misogi, primal life force deep in the lower abdomen is activated and the potential to directly experience the root of one's being is at hand."