Yonamine Chiru was an Okinawan martial artist in the 1800s and the wife of Matsumura Sōkon.
[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.
[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.