In Jiu-Jitsu, there is the concept of creating a notional, even ritual space in which to train. The practice of 'rei-ing' (bowing) in to the dojo -- the physical training space -- is a performative act that represents an engagement with that space -- a step away from the norms and rules of regular life, and into something other.
(At least, that is how I have always thought of it. The organisation with which I trained is built on the Japanese martial art of jiujitsu, but is several steps removed from Japanese elements of it by history (e.g. by being imported and reshaped in the UK). There are elements, such as the names of techniques, which bear reference to its history, but I don't intend to make any suggestions about the art's roots, nor Japan. Caveat lector.)
This bowing is a threshold ritual. Most people I trained with had at least one story of sleepily bowing into a toilet or a lecture theatre or a church -- other forms of spaces that feel specific and set apart from your average room in some way. People weren't seeking to venerate those spaces, but the pricking awareness of the otherness of the space they were entering triggered a reflex.
I think this connects interestingly to the nature of modern community space. The foundation with which I trained doesn't have permanent training spaces -- it makes use of shared university gyms, community centres, even squash courts. (There is, it must be said, something singular about the experience of having to wait, robed and belted to practice pretend fighting, while a bunch of 10-year-old ballerinas file out of the hall looking much cooler than you.) The act of bowing is a transformative one -- it changes the space into which you're stepping from a room into a dojo. I find the idea that a dojo can be anywhere -- that it's made by the people and their observance of it -- compelling.
It came up in conversation with a friend recently that there are analogues between this and some of my daily working rituals. I have 'start-up' and 'shut-down' procedures that mark the beginning and end of my work day. They are rooted in something practical -- they are a set of things that it is useful for me to do at the start and end of the day. But through habit and ritual, they become something more than that. They're not passive markers of the start and end of a period of time -- they are a performative act that creates or transforms that time into something else.