DECATUR - Tai chi tiresome? Yoga a yawn? Maybe it's time you beat mind and body into shape with a healthy dose of Irish Stick Fighting.

And wouldn't you know it, the luck of the Irish has arranged things so there just happens to be an Irish Stick Fighting course coming up in June at Richland Community College.

Marking a bold new direction for Richland's continuing education franchise, participants will be taught 20 basic block and attack moves as they work up a sweat. But the sticks will be not be the kind that break your bones. Instructor and passionate lover of Irish culture Eric Littrell will equip students with hardwood dowels that have tennis balls protecting the ends.

The class offers students 18 and older a crash course in what Littrell calls "gross motor skills," with a chance to do a little controlled and padded sparring. "I've got two trainee sticks made out of PVC plastic and covered in foam rubber," the instructor says. "We'll have some limited contact practice, although nothing to where anyone could get hurt. But it will all be more fun than tai chi."

If you were unaware, Grasshopper, that the Irish have a homegrown martial art, you need to move those empty Guinness glasses aside and get the history books out. Littrell, who can trace his ancestry to the Emerald Isle, says stick fighting dates to prehistory, when the stick was the only weapon to hand. It never lost its appeal for the Irish who, over the years when their eyes weren't smiling, developed various fighting systems based around knob-headed sticks measuring 34 to 37 inches long and made of hardwood.

"Using sticks called batas or shillelaghs, the Irish fought in battles called faction fights, which were often feuds between rival families," Littrell says. "And you could lay someone's head open with one of these sticks."

Littrell, 37, who lives in Cerro Gordo, brought his own stick recently to demonstrate: a solid 2 feet, 8 inches of black locust with a shiny, ball-like head. It made meaningful swooshing noises as the instructor beat the air with it during a demonstration in the lobby of Richland's Shilling Center.

"The schedule listing this class won't be out until late May to June 1, and yet we've already got two people registered for it," says Jennifer Peterson, Richland's training coordinator for continuing and professional education. Asked if Irish Stick Fighting was the most unusual course the college has ever offered, Peterson replies: "It's right up there. It's right, right up there."

Littrell has spent 25 years studying many forms of martial arts and synthesized them into a "self-protection" course ("self-defense is too passive"), which he hopes to launch soon to help us take care of ourselves in a troubled world. In the meantime, however, no one is going to get the wrong end of the stick in stick fighting class, which is purely recreational.

The instructor plans to mix moves with some dashes of Irish history and a smattering of blarney anecdotes while pounding home a few funny stories concerning our cuddly Celtic cousins from across the pond.

"You have no idea how much I am looking forward to teaching this class," says Littrell. "This is going to be a lot of fun."

Tony Reid can be reached at treid@herald-review.com or 421-7977.