What if you took away the Eastern flavor, and made it more of a Western style. There's was a French Renaissance-era street acrobatic fighting style that included fighting with a cane, and sometimes, swords, straight razors, whips, and even guns. It was called Savate, or something like that, if I remember my 3rd Edition GURPS martial arts correctly.
Edit: Rankings were indicated by different sets of gloves, so you could still incorporate lots of items and crafting if you wanted.