Yonamine Chiru

Yonamine Chiru was an Okinawan martial artist in the 1800s and the wife of Matsumura Sōkon. Nicknamed Tsuru-San (“crane”) or Yonamine no Bushi Tsuru (“Yonamine the crane warrior”), she was well-regraded as an Okinawan sumo wrestler and considered a “tomboy” for her love of fighting.[1] She may have had a hand in developing the Matsumura Orthodox version of the kata Seisan, which is said by the Takae-Ryu Karate-Do Association to allow women to fight with a baby on their backs.[2]

In addition to her studies of sumo wrestling and tegumi, she was known for her skills with weightlifting.[3]

She was the daughter of a wealthy business owner[1] and she came from a prominent martial arts family,[4] but she could not find a spouse because of her love of fighting. As she aged, her parents increasingly raised the dowry to marry her, but found few takers until Matsumura learned about her.[1] While some legends describe a wrestling match between the two, Shōshin Nagamine writes that Matsumura took the more traditional route of asking her parents’ permission.[1] They may have been married in 1818.[5][4]

After their marriage, Matsumura was worried about her habit of walking home alone at night, so he pretended to be a thief to scare her; however, she was able to put up a good match against her husband, without realizing it was her husband.[3]