Rutendo Ngara
Rutendo Ngara from the College of Graduate Studies has recently been selected to represent South Africa at the 5th World Traditional Wushu Championships in China in November 2012, as a member of the National Protea Traditional Wushu Team.
She is a dedicated practitioner of the Chinese Martial Arts, having achieved three gold medals in Kung Fu and Tai Ji at the 2012 South African Wushu Federation National Championships. As the largest international traditional Kung Fu tournament, this is an official World Championship event, recognised by both the International Olympic Committee and the General Association of International Sports Federations.
The practice of Chinese martial arts is linked to Ms Ngara’s doctoral study “Science, Culture, Cosmology and Paradigms of Healing: Towards Integrated Policy and Practice”, which focuses on the gap between local, regional and international policies aimed at integrating specialised medical knowledge systems and actual practice. It seeks to facilitate greater dialogue between medical knowledge systems – through a comparative analysis and synthesis of Western, Southern and Eastern healing paradigms – as a contribution towards more holistic healthcare provision. Western Allopathic Medicine, African Traditional Medicine and Traditional Chinese Medicine form the cases for the study.
The visit to China will thus afford her the opportunity to carry out research into the science, culture and cosmology of Traditional Chinese Medicine, which is premised on similar principles to those of Wushu.
