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Kai Dan Keeps Getting Better
12/09/2011...Edmonton, Alberta - After taking train rides of up to 36 hours in duration within his native China, a quick airplane ride to Canada in 2007 was easy for NAIT Ooks ace badminton player Kai Dan.
Dan, from Xi’an, the capital of the Shaanxi province, picked up his first badminton racquet at the age of 10 when his father Shu Ming Dan introduced him to the sport.
“My dad was not really a badminton player and we did not have a club in our city,” recalls Dan, 23. “Then in Grade 7 our teacher asked us what our dream was and for us to write it down. They also promised that no one would see it. I wrote down that I wanted to become a badminton player because I liked it.
“But the teacher lied to us and gave it to our parents to read. My dad asked if that is what I really wanted and I said yes.”
Before you could say shuttle cock fast five times, Dan was on a 36-hour train ride to Nanning, China to attend a sports specific school.
“I was 13 years old and in Grade 7 and here I am alone on this long train ride. It was a great experience for me and you get to communicate with a lot of people on a ride like that.”
While in Nanning, Dan would practice badminton four to eight hours a day with academics performed at a different school.
His highest achievement while representing the school was a fourth in men’s doubles at the 2005 Junior Nationals along with teammate Wang Yizhang.
In 2007, Dan, with the assistance of Ooks coach Jordan Richey and Royal Glenora’s Wang Wen (a former teammate of Dan’s Chinese coach Yu Yong) made the trip to Canada.”
“It was February,” recalled Dan, who won the 2011 CCAA Badminton Men’s Singles National Championship last year in Sackville, New Brunswick making it his third title with wins in 2008 and 2009.
“I was pretty excited the first month or so….all the different colours of people’s hair and different faces. But it was really hard to communicate.
“The first time I met Coach Richey we had no communication. He would explain everything to me and really did not understand so I just said,”OK” to everything.”
After two years enrolled in English as a Second Language, Dan communicates just fine now.
He is patiently awaiting his Canadian citizenship: “Hopefully it will come next year. Right now I cannot play at Canadian nationals as I am Chinese. I can play at provincial opens where I have won some but lost more.
“I am not training as much as I used to as to be able to stay in Canada I have to study and work so I am a full-time student and full-time coach now.”
Dan said that during his playing career in China. “I was basically a really strong power player,” but since arriving in Canada “I am out of shape but my skill is getting really better in strategy and movement.”
Kai Dan is his Chinese name while in Canada "eveyone calls me Dan Kai."
