I have been reborn a samurai. Twice a week, for two hours, I step back hundreds of years as I hold aloft a bamboo staff and prepare to knock seven samurai shades out of a tyre swinging on a pole.

Kendo, or Japanese fencing, is the oldest Japanese martial art. Its origins date back around 1,500 years. Known as the Way of the Sword, its technique is based on the two-handed blade of the samurai.

This warrior class used kendo to acquire combat skills and to develop mental poise. Today it is practised with a bamboo stave called a shinai and protective body armour, gauntlets and a face mask.

Training is based on a variety of movements of attack and defence known as waza. The winner of a bout succeeds in landing blows to the face, arms, upper body or throat of an opponent.

Which, in a nutshell, means you get to wear a really cool costume, scream like a banshee, and hit people with a big stick all the while developing inner poise, of course.

My conversion to the Way of the Sword occurred about three weeks ago when I read somewhere that the light sabre duels in Star Wars were based on moves from kendo. Thus, from that moment on, it became my life's mission to become a great kendo warrior.

And anyway, how difficult could hitting people with sticks ultimately prove to be?

Four lessons on, I am still learning how to hold the thing. Kendo is hard, really hard. There's so much to think about grip, stance, balance, footwork. It's also not easy to become a samurai when you're the only adult in a class of six-14-year-olds.

I am the kendo equivalent of the dunce sat at the back of the class with raffia while everyone else gets on with long division. While the little scamps are merrily belting hell out of each other, I stand alone, flailing at a tyre on a stick.

Sometimes they pair me up with an underwhelmed teenager who has to stand warily opposite me, while I flail at their head, stopping millimetres short of performing brain surgery.

The uniform, though, compensates for any sense of inadequacy. The top is like a judo shirt and is worn under a pair of voluminous pleated flares called tare. As I'm not yet ready to hit anyone or be hit, I don't need the face mask, chest protector or padded mittens.

But that's fine by me. The most important thing is that my name is embroidered in kanji on my uniform. In gold. Incidentally, 'Kate' translates as "woollen thread" and I like to think that's not a comment on my fencing style.

As with all things Japanese, the sense of ritual is paramount. There are set pieces which seem to owe more to theatre than swordsmanship. Bowing seems to be the most important move in kendo. It is performed at least eight dozen times during the course of a class to the Japanese flag when you enter, to your teacher, your opponents, and assorted mums and dads who come to pick up their kids.

But not just any old bow will do it has to be at an angle of 30 degrees. Apparently my bows are too low. They have been measured and I am too respectful by at least 10 degrees.

Now the most essential thing to attain, besides technique, is a state of mind known as "no thought" or "no reflection" (munen). Unfortunately for me, this does not mean having an empty head, but rather, letting go of the ego and allowing the unsconscious to take over, so that the body acts on reflexes alone (this is also known as "doing by not doing").

The hall where swordsmanship is practised is called a dojo. Dojo is also the name for a place devoted to religious exercises. And as the term kendo also implies spiritual discipline, it's not surprising that stepping inside the dojo feels a bit like entering a church even if it is, to all intents and purposes, just a primary school gymnasium.

And, just as you wouldn't cough into the communion cup or cartwheel down the aisle in church, there are certain Things You Don't Do in the Dojo.

These include: sitting crumpled instead of respectfully kneeling up, even if you are just someone's mum watching; treading on the step when you walk in (is there some deeper religious significance to this, or is it just so you don't trip over someone's flipsflops?); and stepping over your shinai instead of around it.

I have a long way to go before I let go of my ego. But one thing's for sure, when I return to England next year, it'll be hard to pass a broomstick and not feel spiritually lifted...