AdamaeusDjinn

Spirit At Choice: If you're being frequently targeted, then I suggest (I am in no way being facetious) that you carry a stungun. I am uncertain as to the legality of this particular weapon in certain states, so this may not be a viable option; but it's certainly more practical than martial arts. When it's your body on the line, always go for the surest bet. Weapons are much more efficient than fists or kicks.

The Tao of Jeet Kune Do is not a traditional sort of book; it has little cohesion, and Bruce Lee never really refined its philosophical aspects into something easy to follow. Sometimes his writing is brilliant, poetic, elegant; other times, it reads like hastily scrawled realizations (which some of them probably were). The book opens with philosophy, which I suggest reading on its own merit. The book then goes into the "basics" of Jeet Kune Do. But remember: This book was intended to serve as a base, off which the practitioner of JKD would launch himself. Use what's useful, discard what isn't. Don't go into this reading it as an instructional type deal. It won't teach you do to such-and-such move or become proficient in a set amount of time; that's not its aim. It's an important book for martial arts generally, and so you ought to read it for that merit alone; but yes, it could serve as a good foundation for accumulating new skills. If you come across something useful in the Tao, keep it close to your heart, so that it becomes insensible, second-nature. Acquire more techniques as you study other martial styles, incorporate them into your own kind of fighting. (This is where the "liberation" type of speech comes from. JKD stresses formlessness. It enables a kind of...personalization.) I don't know how much help this has been, but, to sum it up shortly: Read the Tao. It's worth your time.