The tour is "run by bodyboarders for bodyboarders" and features divisions ranging from 14-and-younger up to professional. It was created in 2000 to fill a dearth of contests for bodyboarders in Hawai'i.

"The main focus is to get the amateurs — the kids, especially — to gain some experience in contests and to give them a chance to see how the pros train and compete in contests," said IBA Hawai'i executive director Corey Correa.

The amateurs do not compete against the pros, but they do share the beach on contest days, making it look like one big bodyboarding party.

Jeff Hubbard, Hawai'i's top-ranked professional, can often be seen sharing advice with the younger competitors such as Tyndzik.

The tour makes stops on O'ahu, Kaua'i, Maui and the Big Island, and more than 200 Hawai'i bodyboarders are expected to participate this year.

It is sanctioned by the IBA, the International Bodyboarding Association, which is the governing body of the sport.

The only requirement for the tour is that the board of choice be a bodyboard.

"It's run by bodyboarders for bodyboarders," Correa said. "This is something that was needed because bodyboarding has kind of been left behind in the last couple of years."

Correa, a former competitive bodyboarder, said he started the tour "on a whim" when he discovered that there were almost no contests for him to enter in Hawai'i in the late 1990s.

"You can go to almost any beach and see how popular bodyboarding is," Correa said. "And there are probably a lot of really good bodyboarders out there who don't know that there are events for them to enter. We just want to give them an outlet to compete and keep the future of the sport going."

Tyndzik is one of the youngest competitors on the tour, but his parents said he already talks about becoming a professional bodyboarder.

"He loves it and I love it because it gives me something to hold over him as far as getting his school work done," Jane Tyndzik said. "If he doesn't finish his homework, we don't go to the beach."

The tour is also necessary from a competitive standpoint.

"This is not like surfing, where you can travel all around the world and enter a whole bunch of contests," said Hubbard, who was raised on Kaua'i but now resides in Honolulu. "If it wasn't for this tour, we'd have almost no contests to compete in in Hawai'i."

Many of the amateur surfing associations in Hawai'i have bodyboarding divisions, but Kailon said he prefers to compete in the "bodyboarders only" format of the IBA Hawai'i tour.

As Correa put it: "Usually when there's a pro surfing event, you don't see the amateurs surfing alongside the pros. But with our contests, the amateurs get to see what the pros are doing, and then they can go right out and try it themselves. They can also get advice and so forth from the pros, and all of that helps."

Because there are only a few professional bodyboarding events in Hawai'i, many of the top international bodyboarders are entering the IBA Hawai'i tour.

Former world champion Guilherme Tamega of Brazil won the professional men's division at Makapu'u in March.

In the professional women's division, several of Japan's top competitors are entering the IBA Hawai'i tour.

"There are a lot more contests for the pros in Japan," Aoi Koike said. "But in Hawai'i, the waves are so much better. It's better practice for us to come to Hawai'i."

Entry fee is $30 per contest for amateurs and $100 for professionals (in the pro divisions, most of the entry fees go into the prize purse). The amateurs compete for prizes — and pride.

"It's kind of different being a bodyboarder; I don't think they get the respect that the surfers do," said Jane Tyndzik, who has one son who surfs and one who bodyboards. "But this tour kind of gives them something to feel really good about."