If the story sounds painfully familiar, a mother and her child both lived it.

“Growing up, I was poor. We didn’t know it. We just made do,” Christina Mrkonja recalled. “And I was very quiet, so I got made fun of. I was bullied.”

Fast-forward a generation to a comparable situation with son Nico.

“He has various neurological issues, including epilepsy,” his mother said. “And he was bullied pretty badly,”

As it turns out, Mom’s saving grace is his, too.

“I was noticing that the physical therapy and occupational therapy exercises he was doing, a lot of them kind of coordinated with what he was learning in martial arts,” Mrkonja said.

She was 10 when, at her parents’ suggestion as a confidence boost, she began taking Tang Soo Do lessons in her hometown of Ambridge. Today, she is the owner of Rising River Martial Arts in Ross, as Nico continues his studies in the discipline that has its roots in ancient Korea.

“We had known pretty much a few years after he was born that there were some neurological issues,” she said. “So what did I think to do? I called my instructor, because he was kind of like my beacon of reason all these years.”

Master instructor Scott Homschek told her, “Bring him down.”

Homschek has a special place in his memory for the first time Mrkonja’s parents brought her to his fledgling River Valley Tang Soo Do Academy.

“We had started a few months prior with just adults,” he recalled, “and her father approached me and said, ‘I would like to get her some lessons.’ I said, ‘Well, I don’t have a kids’ class, but I’m happy to start one.’”

He and his wife, fellow instructor Julia Harvey, took the youngster under their collective wing.

“One-on-one for six months, it was just me and them,” Mrkonja said. “It was pretty awesome.”

‘I want to make a difference’

She earned her black belt — in Tang Soo Do, the process is comparatively protracted — four years later, at age 14, and as of December 1998 was looking forward to advancing to the next level.

“About six months before I was due to test for my second-degree black belt, I was in a car accident that broke my back,” she said. “It really sidelined me after a while. When you’re a kid, you bounce back from things, and I was OK for about five or six years after that. But once I hit my mid-20s, things started to hurt.”

While she did go on to earn her second- and third-degree black belts, martial arts began to take a back seat with her marriage to Nick Sheleheda — she uses her maiden name in the Tang Soo Do community — and working on her degree in communications from Penn State.

Nico, who has his father’s surname, was born in 2013.

“When my son started having the same issues that I had at his age — the bullying, the mean words, the ‘he’s different’ — it kind of evoked something in me,” Mrkonja said. “I have always found jobs that allow me to make a difference. I want to teach kids how to defend themselves, whether it be verbally or physically. I want to make a difference that way.”

So she accompanied Nico to River Valley, he as a student and she as a teacher, reprising a role Homschek had given her when she still was a teenager.

“Once she re-engaged, she became very passionate about not only her own training, but going back and helping the other students who were coming up in the junior programs,” Homschek said. “She spent two or three years directly under me as one of my instructors. Then she started getting the itch, as we call it, to go out and expand the opportunities into other communities. And I always wholeheartedly support my students who want to do so.”

‘One is three’

Running a school isn’t easy, he acknowledged.

“We have a general equation that I tell my students who want to be studio owners. It’s ‘one is three’: One hour of floor time, as a business owner, is three hours of other activities,” he said. “But she has set herself up for fantastic success, and the benefit of her success is the positive impact it has on the community around her.”

Mrkonja opened Rising River — the name is an homage to River Valley — last year in Bellevue. She relocated to Ross this March.

“I actually kept all my students from Bellevue, which is really nice,” she said. “And in fact, moving here, I grew significantly. I’m running three classes a day, four days a week, so that I can fit everybody in here.”

She’s the only instructor, meaning schedules sometimes don’t fit.

“Before I went to four days a week, I had gotten students who couldn’t train the days that I offered, and I’ve referred them to other schools,” Mrkonja said. “As long as a kid is training, that’s the most important thing. I don’t care where it is. Of course, I would like it to be here, but if not, I’m happy to refer them somewhere else.”

She is a Lifetime Gold Member of the World Tang Soo Do Association, which promotes the martial arts form that primarily stresses self-defense. Homschek serves as the organization’s director for the multi-state Region 22.

“The association allows us to have a lot of resources that help us develop our students, develop ourselves and improve our instruction,” he said. “It’s also really nice because when folks travel, there’s the opportunity for them to get connected with the local Tang Soo Do school. We know that anytime we’re out and about, if there’s an association school nearby, we have family waiting to greet us.”

Another WTSDA benefit is the awarding of scholarships to high school seniors.

“That allowed me to go to college,” Mrkonja said. “The opportunities afforded to me through this association, I’m trying to pay forward.”

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