Tom started his journey into the Martial Arts in the 7th grade when his gym coach, Tony Aileo, introduced him to western boxing. After that Tom researched and trained in several other Martial Arts and being thoughrly unimpressed, Tom felt joining the Military, The U.S. Navy, would give him more variety. While in the service Tom got to do some serious informal training overseas. Upon returning home from his tour Tom spent the next several years traveling the country earning his living as a professional pool player. During that time Tom had ample opportunity to hone his skills as a fighter.
In 1986 while at a street-fighting seminar in Oklahoma sponsored by his dear friend, the late Terry Gibson, he met Sifu Paul Vunak. It was then that he realized that Paul's potent art, (now called Filthy MMA), was what he had been passionately searching for. Tom quickly became Paul's most devoted student. One year later Paul was asked to train the most elite of all the 'special warfare' groups- Navy Seal Team 6. and asked Mr. Cruse to assist him.
After 4 years of training SEAL team 6, Paul and Tom moved back to California and decided the most appropriate place for their violent art was the military. Over the next 15 years Tom assisted Paul in creating 50 instructional videos and training 17 government agencies.
"Tom and I have been through wars together. Time and time again I have seen him in action." Paul Vunak
Since then he has produced his own series of Martial Art instructional training videos, and written numerous published articles for Black Belt, Inside Kung Fu, and MA Illustrated. Tom has also been the editor and publisher of the Probe magazine.
Tom's continued devotion to working with Military units eventually earned him him the ultimate gesture of appreciation. On October 9th, 2007 the Marine Corps first Fleet anti terrorism team raised the flag over the United States Embassy-Bagdad in Tom's honor. Currently, Tom is the Vice President of Operations and Senior Training Officer of the Descendants of the Masters
One of Tom's greatest personal achievements to date is having had the American Flag flown in his honor, for his work teaching our military, over the U. S. Embassy in Bagdad, Iraq. This, for Tom, is where all of his learning and experience working alongside his Sifu-Paul Vunak, and his abilities as a teacher came together.
Flag flown in my honor for lives saved by PFS techniques in Iraq. (click on case to read)
"Mr. Cruse, we would like to express our appreciation for the training that we recieved from you and your organization. The PFS system of hand to hand combat training as taught by you has saved lives in actual combat...Thank you!"
"Defanging isn't like learning a technique. Martial artists can learn a technique and say they've got it. Learning how to defang the snake is like flying a plane. A pilot talks about how much flight time he has. If I have a student who's been with me for a year, he might have 10 or 15 hours of flight time with defanging the snake. Then I might have a student who's been with me for 25 years--like Tom Cruse, who's probably logged thousands of hours doing that one move. When he spars with any of my other students, he always goes 10 to 1, not because he has a better move but because he has more flight time with that one move."
--Paul Vunak (Black Belt Magazine, April 2008)