精力善用 seiryoku zen'yō Maximum Efficiency Minimum Effort

精力善用 (seiryoku zen'yō), the best use of energy, is the first of Kanō Jigorō's two principles of judo, the rule from which the second, 自他共栄, follows as its result. The four characters were ordinary Japanese before judo took them: a sociologist's chapter title of 1911, eleven years before Kanō fixed them as a principle.

Maximum Efficiency Minimum Effort (seiryoku zen'yō)

Maximum Efficiency Minimum Effort (seiryoku zen'yō) on a traditional Japanese Scroll by Master Eri Takase.

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Abstract

精力善用, seiryoku zen'yō, the best use of energy, is the first of Kano Jigorō's two principles of judo, the abridgement of the Kodokan's longer 精力最善活用. The Kodokan's own statement of purpose, printed in 1925, makes it the rule from which the second principle, 自他共栄, prospering together, follows as its result. The four characters were ordinary Japanese eleven years before Kano fixed them as a principle, a sociologist's chapter title of 1911; the phrase never entered a Japanese dictionary, and it reached English only with judo itself, from 1945.

Overview

The sense. Use your energy in the best way: the first of 嘉納治五郎's two principles, the rule, of which the second, 自他共栄, you and others prosper together, is the result.

The words. Four characters: 精力 energy, vigor, 善用 to use well. The Kodokan's own longer form, which its founding statement uses, is 精力最善活用, the best and most living use of energy, and the four characters are its abridgement ^[1]. The phrase is not in a Japanese dictionary: kotobank returns nothing for it, and the bilingual JMdict has no entry ^[2]. It belongs to judo and to the schools and societies that borrowed it, and its definition is the Kodokan's.

The text in English. No Meiji dictionary enters the phrase; it reaches English with judo itself.

The historical record

1911, 遠藤隆吉, 生活の趣味, a sociologist's book on the pleasures of living, chapter 精力善用論. Eleven years before the Kodokan fixed the phrase, it is a chapter title: On the good use of one's energy. 人間は精力善用と云ふことが必要であらうと思ふ, I think a person needs what is called the good use of energy; every moment should develop the self, and to reach that state one must use one's own energy well: a scholar who sits all day with his books is doing what he should, but one who smokes and gazes out of the window, or rests his chin in his hand watching others exercise, or strolls about to no purpose, cannot be said to have used his energy well. The four characters were ordinary Japanese, and the library's index has three more uses between 1914 and 1920 with nothing to do with judo. What Kano did was fix them as a principle and pair them ^[3].

Around 1922, 嘉納治五郎 and the 講道館文化会, the Kodokan Cultural Society. Every witness puts the fixing of the pair here: the Kodokan's own bilingual dictionary dates both phrases to 1922 ^[4]; a Nippon Budokan history has Kano declare at the society's council in 1922 that 精力最善活用, now referred to as seiryoku zenyō, is the principle ^[5]; an American history has the society founded in 1922 on the two ^[6]. The library's index agrees from its own side: the pair 精力善用自他共栄 is a primary school's lesson title in Fukushima in 1924 ^[7]. Kano's own books that carry them, 『精力善用国民体育』(1930) and 『柔道教本』(1931), are catalogued but not digitized.

1925, the society's statement of purpose, printed in the 柔道年鑑 and reprinted verbatim in the yearbooks to 1939. Written in the founder's first person, it is the Kodokan's own definition and the nearest thing to Kano's own words among the digitized books. The principle of judo, it says, applied to the body makes the strongest body, to the mind the best man, to food, clothing, housing and manners the people's welfare, to business its results. Then the diagnosis and the cure: 近來の我が國は、勞を厭ひ逸を追ふものが益々增加し、奢侈贅澤風をなし、到る所、個人も團體も、喧嘩、小競合ひで精力を消耗しつゝあるの現狀である。これを救ふには、一面柔道の原理を社會生活に應用した主義である精力最善活用に依て各般のことを行ふと同時に、その自然の結果として成立する相助・相讓・自他共榮主義を以て、個人、團體相互の融和、協調を圖るより外に有効なる道はないと信ずる, in recent years more and more of our people shun labor and chase ease, luxury has become the fashion, and everywhere, individuals and groups alike, energy is being worn away in quarrels and squabbles. To cure this there is no effective way but to do everything by the principle that is judo's applied to social life, the best use of energy, and at the same time, by the principle that comes into being as its natural result, helping one another, yielding to one another, prospering together, to seek harmony and concord between persons and between groups. The two are cause and effect, and 精力善用 is the cause ^[1]. The 1928 yearbook adds that the society's magazine 作興 clarifies in every issue the sense of 精力善用・自他共栄 that Master Kano has preached for many years ^[8].

1932 to 1939, the phrase in the schools. The Ministry of Education's 1932 handbook on physical education repeats the whole formula with the imperial house at its center ^[9]; a town history of 1936 records a branch of the society holding up the two great spirits of 精力善用自他共栄 ^[10]; a teachers' college in 1939 makes its pupils apply them to every part of daily life ^[11]; and the Tokyo prefecture's register of 1937 defines the society by thought-guidance and life-improvement by the 精力善用自他共栄 principle ^[12]. Seventy-four books in the index carry the phrase before 1945 ^[7].

The sense across time. One sense, unchanged since 1925: 精力善用 is a rule for the use of oneself, in the body first and then everywhere, and 自他共栄 is what follows when everyone keeps it. The phrase had a private, almost domestic sense before judo took it, the good use of an hour; Kano made it a principle of the body and then of a nation.

What is not a source. The 1911 chapter is a prehistory of the words, not a source of the principle; nothing cited here says Kano knew it.

The phrase in English

1945 to 1963. The Budokwai, then the Kodokan's own English. A contents line in the Budokwai's Judo Quarterly Bulletin, vol. 1, London, Judo: Maximum Efficiency and …, is the earliest English known ^[13]. The Kodokan's own Judo, Tokyo, 1955, gives the standard since: Professor Kano summarized the above teaching in the slogans, Seiryoku-Zen'yō, the Maximum-Efficiency, and Jita-Kyōei, the Mutual Welfare and Benefit ^[14].

1974 to 2020. The handbooks, the founder's own voice in English, and the teaching books. The 1974 Judo Handbook sets it as an examination question. Pat Harrington's 1987 Judo: A Pictorial Manual reproduces Dr Kano's handwriting of both principles, the first glossed maximum efficiency ^[15]. Kodansha International's 1986 English edition of Kano's own Kodokan Judo carries a chapter on Principles and Aims ^[16]; Murata Naoki's 2005 anthology of the founder's writings, Mind Over Muscle, gives seiryoku zenyo (maximum efficiency) in his own voice ^[17]. Kawamura Teizō's Kōdōkan New Japanese-English Dictionary of Judo, 2000, dates the phrase to 1922 ^[4]. Takahashi Masao's Mastering Judo, 2005, gives "seiryoku zenyo" (maximum efficiency with minimum effort) ^[18]. Alexander Bennett's Budō: The Martial Ways of Japan, Nippon Budokan, 2009, gives "Seiryoku-zenyo" (the most efficient use of energy), and notes that Kano's 1922 wording was the long form ^[5]. The Legacy of Kano Jigoro: Judo and Education, 2020, gives Seiryoku zen'yo (maximum efficient use of energy) ^[19].

Today. The English forms are the judo world's, not any one translator's: maximum efficiency, alone or with minimum effort. A rendering keeps the phrase as a rule about energy, not effort. No Japanese dictionary cited here enters it ^[2].

A reading

This is Kano's first principle, and the grammar matters: in the Kodokan's own sentence it is the rule, and 自他共栄 is what follows from keeping it. And it was ordinary Japanese before judo, a sociologist's chapter title in 1911, so what Kano made was a principle, not a coinage.

Sources not seen

Kanō Jigorō, "The Contribution of Judo to Education," a lecture at the University of Southern California, printed in the Journal of Health and Physical Education, November 1932: cited by title and journal in a dozen later books, none of them a copy of the lecture itself, and no copy is held here. It would settle the founder's own English for both principles, and so the credit for maximum efficiency as his wording or a translator's.

Kanō Jigorō, 『精力善用国民体育』(1930) and 『柔道教本』(1931): catalogued in the National Diet Library's index but not digitized there, and neither is held here. Either would settle whether the four-character abridgement 精力善用 is Kano's own wording or the Kodokan Cultural Society's.

A reader with access to any of these is invited to write to Takase Studios at Tim@Takase.com.

References

1. 講道館文化会, 柔道年鑑, 大正14年度 (1925), scan 16; reprinted in the yearbooks of 1928, 1930, 1933, 1935, 1937, 1939. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/964759/1/16
2. kotobank, 精力善用・自他共栄・自他共榮・精力最善活用 (no entry); JMdict via gokanji.com (no entry). https://kotobank.jp/word/精力善用
3. 遠藤隆吉, 生活の趣味, 富山房, 1911, scan 113 (chapter 精力善用論 at scan 10). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/898530/1/113
4. Kawamura Teizō, ed., Kōdōkan New Japanese-English Dictionary of Judo, 2000, at Internet Archive (kodokan-new-japanese-english-dictionary-of-judo-etc.).
5. Alexander Bennett, ed., Budō: The Martial Ways of Japan, Nippon Budokan, 2009, at Internet Archive (martialwaysofjap0000alex).
6. Michel Brousse, Judo in the U.S., North Atlantic, 2005, at Internet Archive (judoinuscenturyo0000brou).
7. National Diet Library Digital Collections, next-generation full-text search on 精力善用 and 自他共栄, counted by decade. https://lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/
8. 講道館文化会, 柔道年鑑, 昭和3年度, National Diet Library, pid 1121921.
9. 文部省, 現代体育の施設と管理, 1932, National Diet Library Digital Collections. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1119716
10. 御影町誌, 1936, National Diet Library Digital Collections. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1257877
11. 宮城県師範学校, 本校の教育, 1939, National Diet Library Digital Collections. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1278088
12. 東京府, 東京府史 行政篇 第5巻, 1937, scan 306. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1686821/1/306
13. Judo Quarterly Bulletin, vol. 1, the Budokwai, London, 1945–46, at Internet Archive (budokwai.-1946.-judo-quarterly-bulletin-vol.-1-nos.-1-4).
14. Kodokan, Judo, Tokyo, 1955, at Internet Archive (judo0000kodo).
15. Pat Harrington, Judo: A Pictorial Manual, David & Charles, 1987, at Internet Archive (judopictorialman0000harr).
16. Kanō Jigorō, Kodokan Judo, Kodansha International, 1986, the 1994 printing, at Internet Archive (kodokanjudo0000kanj).
17. Murata Naoki, ed., Mind Over Muscle: Writings from the Founder of Judo, Kodansha, 2005, the 2013 printing, at Internet Archive (mindovermusclewr0000kanj).
18. Takahashi Masao, Mastering Judo, Human Kinetics, 2005, at Internet Archive (masteringjudo0000unse).
19. The Legacy of Kano Jigoro: Judo and Education, Japan Publishing Industry Foundation, 2020, at Internet Archive (legacyofkanojigo0000seit).

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1, Takase Studios LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Checked · Claude Sonnet (Anthropic), 2026-09-15, citations — every claim tested at its address; most resolve; several resolve but differ — side-findings off the cited addresses, taken into the record; the rest not openable; the withheld books stated to the check rather than shown, several re-opened by hand