Got my first bodyboarding contest invite!

Had a funny thing happen yesterday at the beach after my bodyboarding session....I got invited to my first bodyboarding contest. Now, first let me tell you a little bit about the bodyboarding world, and then a little bit about my experience. You see, bodyboarding, just like every other popular sport (well at least it's popular among my group of friends and acquaintances)with cliques has its "in" crowd and "the rest" kind of people. The "in" crowd is usually beach dependent (i.e. those that frequent a certain beach are popular at that beach) or "farandula" status dependent(i.e. the guys with sponsors)...I, to the best of my knowledge, fall in neither category. Now, about me, well, I've been going to the beach for a few years now (my dad first took my older brother and I out when I was 13), but I've only recently (last 3 years) taken a more disciplined (read: listening to feedback, trying out tricks here and there) approach with my hobby. For me, it is just a hobby, something I do for fun on my spare time or on the weekends. I don't take myself seriously nor do I take anyone else seriously (read: I'm not a fan of anyone, and nobody is particularly special in my book...But I do recognize that my opinion on such matters counts for very little). Now, back to the "in" crowd thing. The only reason I find such things interesting is mainly because my little brother has taken a liking to such matters (meaning he looks up to a lot of these folks, folks whom in my book are not particularly interesting people nor do they have much value as assets to society...but that's a whole other topic of discussion.) Basically, being that I'm not one of them (nor do I want to be, even if I secretly envy some of their popularity under certain circumstances), puts me at a disadvantage to being able to capture my little brother's attention long enough to teach him something worthwhile about life. In my little brothers book, since I'm not at the beach as often as he is, nor has he ever seen me in action in much bigger waves than those he frequents out here in the south (where he gets to see other people "showoff"...i'm being sarcastic...you can't "showoff" on a 3ft wave...meh, I'll explain that later if anyone is interested.), its hard for me to convince him that the guys he looks up to are not all that good. Anyways, so why I'm I telling you guys all this anyways? Well, for a while now my bro has been telling me about this contest that was going to take place in this beach in the south. And like any contest, only the best of the best will be invited there to compete. There were a lot of guys out there that day in the beach, a lot of whom I thought were ok (there were two particularly hot surfer girls in there too). Well, the contest's sponsor happened to be surfing with us in there that day, and after I got out he invited me. Not just some random fanboy, but someone who's job it is to look for "talent" (whatever that is)...and for the first time in my "career" (bodyboarding as a career? give me a break...) I received some feedback that actually holds water with all of my friends...but especially with my little bro ;) See you at the beach!