Thomas Cruse - Progressive Fighting Systems

What do you do against bigger attackers? How does someone survive on the ground in a street fight? Does trapping really work? Well, this last weekend, Progressive Fighting Systems senior instructor Tom Cruse showed us that trapping does indeed work very well if used in the proper context and situation as well as the answers to many other questions.
Mark Pavelich and Ryan Ross, the owners of Maximum brought Tom in for a two day seminar on the weekend of February 16/17th in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and what an amazing seminar it was. For all of us it was a complete eye-opener to the amazing teaching ability and fighting skills that Mr. Cruse embodies. His whole philosophy is centered on probably Jeet Kune Do’s most important concept, simplicity.
We started the seminar off with the core of Jeet Kune Do; some know it as the RAT attack system (Rapid Assault Tactics). Once we started getting a base knowledge of how to disable larger attackers that can punch and kick better than we could, Tom introduced trapping. He used “Old School” trapping techniques, only the easiest, most functional traps to clear the centerline of our opponents so that we can continue to straight blast uninterrupted. Anyone who is a non-believer of trapping needs to see Tom’s approach as he ‘demonstrated’ on some ‘doubters’ who questioned the validity of traps.
The seminar didn’t just end there. Other aspects of fighting such as mass attack (multiple opponents), weapons training and ground fighting were also taught that weekend. Mr. Cruse stressed the entire time about the importance of weapons and mass attack training, by the end of the seminar everyone seemed to understand why we train with weapons. Body mechanics and footwork are drastically enhanced with these training methods. We ended the seminar with Brazilian ground fighting, only this type of wrestling had a twist called Kina Mutai, which was great! NO ONE could hold a position after the bite. By the end of the seminar we learned how to firstly defend ourselves against large attackers who can kick box better than we can, how to use trapping properly in its purest most brutal form, fight with a stick and a knife, fight multiple opponents and survive on the ground. Everyone enjoyed the seminar and we all learned lots!!!
We thank Tom for a great seminar at Maximum Martial Arts and we highly recommend anyone and everyone to train with him if they ever get a chance to do so.

-Chapman Lee