During the morning meditation, students are free to practice whatever style they prefer, so long as it's quiet. If you've never done a meditation practice before, here are a couple of suggestions. The first is the practice performed by Saito Hitohiro Soke in Iwama, Japan; the second is taken from a series of articles written by Mike Sigman and published on the Aikido Journal website.
Saito Hitohiro Soke
Sit with your knees shoulder width apart; have your hands either on your knees or placed one on top of the other in front of you.
Extend your lower back and spine, hold your head straight and relax your shoulders.
Your eyes should be neither wide open nor shut tight; gaze softly at the insides of your eyelids.
Inhale slowly and deeply (over a period of 7 seconds) through your nose.
Visualise your breath moving from your chest down into your Tanden (a point midway between your navel and groin) and hold it there for 7 seconds (longer if you can).
As you exhale (again, over a period of 7 seconds), listen to the sound of your breath as it moves from your stomach up to your chest and finally out through your nose.
Breath in the energy from heaven and from the earth and bind them together. Move this energy circularly and continuously around your body so that it fills entirely.
For men, move the energy from a point in the middle of your forehead, down the your front of your body to your Tanden then up your back to the forehead.
For women, move the energy from a point in the middle of your forehead, down your back to a point midway between your forehead and Tanden then up your front to the forehead.
You should begin to feel your body temperature increase and in some cases your skin become slightly itchy. This sensation can be quite pronounced in women especially but also in men and should fade after a month or so.
Whilst you are practising, try to not to cough, sneeze or otherwise make a sound (other than your own breathing) and ignore all other sounds and distractions.
If for any reason you are unable to practice (for example if you have a cold) or if you need to leave at anytime, stay outside and in the case of morning training, perhaps go to the forest and wait.
Mike Sigman
(Re-printed with permission)
Breathing exercises can be done either in seiza or standing. There are pictures of O-Sensei doing both. Standing exercises have the benefit of unrestricted effect on the legs; seiza or sitting exercises are fine and allow the mind to relax somewhat more easily, but the total-body effects are somewhat restricted by the sharp bends in the legs (“Ki does not go easily through bent joints” is an old saying).
When inhaling, the pressure from the inhale must be allowed to expand downward to the abdominal area, preferably all the way to the perineum area. A slight abdominal pressure is maintained by some people, even though the abdomen area is allowed to pooch slightly out; some people increase the pressure a bit by countering any extension of the abdomen by holding the abdominal walls firm. There is much debate about which method is better. My personal feeling is that overall tonus is better developed by a slight resistance to the extension of the abdomen caused by the inhale pressure; just enough pressure to hold the abdominal walls in stasis would be a suggestion. The rest of the body should be very relaxed.
Also when inhaling, imagine that every square inch of the skin is covered by some sort of aura that is pulled lightly down into the skin by the inhale. All other muscles should be relaxed and a muscular tension should not be allowed to develop because then you are developing a muscular tension and not the fascial/micro-muscular specific that relates to the the ki/qi of the body. On exhale, imagine that the air is going out through the fingers or toes (and/or knees, too, if in seiza) and that as the air leaves the body it lightly pulls the skin down onto the muscles and bones similar to a plastic wrap that is “vacuum-bagged” onto some commercial product. As a point of information, this sort of breathing is common within Asian martial-arts and qigongs and goes by names like “skin breathing, “bone breathing,” “turtle breathing,” “condensing breathing,” and so on. Emptying the mind of other matters and then concentrating on the actual visualizations is required to effect results from this type of breathing exercise; “zoning out”, etc., is not going to produce results.