#000450
Tao of Jeet Kune Do
Bruce Lee (edited by Gilbert L. Johnson)
*Tao of Jeet Kune Do* is the closest thing we have to Bruce Lee's philosophy of combat in his own words—a collection assembled from the notebooks he filled while laid up with a back injury in 1970. Part fighting manual, part meditation on freedom and self-expression, it lays out the principles of Jeet Kune Do, the 'style of no style' Lee was developing: economy of motion, adaptability, and the refusal to be bound by fixed forms. Published in 1975, two years after his death, it was edited from his papers by Gilbert Johnson with the involvement of his widow and students. Illustrated with Lee's own sketches, it moves fluidly between technical diagrams and aphorisms drawn from Taoism and Zen. It's less a book you master than one you return to; for anyone interested in martial arts or in Lee's restless, questing mind, it is essential.
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The author
Bruce Lee (1940–1973) was the martial artist, actor, and philosopher whose brief career reshaped both action cinema and Western ideas about the martial arts. Beyond the screen he was a serious student of philosophy, and Jeet Kune Do—his "way of the intercepting fist"—was an attempt to strip fighting of rigid tradition in favor of directness, adaptability, and personal freedom.
The book
The material began in 1970, when a back injury forced Lee into a long convalescence and he filled notebooks with techniques and reflections, some copied or adapted from his large library of martial-arts and philosophical works. He hesitated to publish, fearing misuse. After his death his widow, Linda Lee Cadwell, chose to release the notes; editor Gilbert L. Johnson, working with students such as Dan Inosanto, shaped them into the 1975 Ohara edition.
How to read it
It is a compilation, not a finished treatise—part diagrammed technique, part philosophical fragment—so it reads as notebook and provocation rather than a systematic course. Scholars note that passages draw on other authors, from fencing masters to D. T. Suzuki. Read as a window into Lee's evolving thought, it is unmatched, and it has sold in the millions.
For more context
It pairs with Lee's Striking Thoughts and biographies that trace his philosophical reading.
Sources - Wikipedia: Tao of Jeet Kune Do - Biblio
- Type
- Book
- Author / Maker
- Bruce Lee (edited by Gilbert L. Johnson)
- Publisher
- Ohara Publications
- Place of publication
- Burbank, California
- Year
- 1975
- ISBN
- None
- Shelf
- Spirituality & Philosophy
- Location
- Colorado