Like a fighter pilot using both hands to simulate two airplanes in a dogfight, Kai is replaying for everyone in the room an invaluable tutorial on the powers of the ocean, one he had just received from two of the worlds greatest-living watermen.

Having just returned from a training session on Baldwin Beach, with his friend Dave, Kai Lenny is sitting on the couch of his parents home, his hands are extended out in front of himself, and he is intently recounting yesterday’s tow-in surf session, on a foil-board, with a couple of friends of his.

Animated, passionately so, Kai is maneuvering both of his hands, as though he is the right hand riding a foil-board, and his left-hand is the face of yesterdays wave; a wave that prior to the day before he had only dreamt of riding.

“Laird and Dave were in the channel yelling at me to go to the channel,” he explains.   “But I kept thinking I wasn’t deep enough because the wave would rap so far, I felt like if I kept going straight I would just go out the back, but Jaws just feels like it lures you deeper. “

Yes, he did say Jaws, That Jaws, Peahi, and yes, he was with That Dave and That Laird; and yes, he’s good enough, at 16-years-old, to have earned the tutelage he’s receiving from them both.

“They just wanted to foil and I was just kind of tagging along,” he humbly tries to downplay the experience, moments after landing both of his hands back in his lap. “Such an honor to say that I launched a jet-ski, at Jaws, with Laird and Dave, not everyone can say that.”

“He’s a great kid. He reminds me of myself,” explains mentor, Dave Kalama. “I wasn’t the most naturally-gifted kid out there, but no one was going to out-work me. Kai may not be the most naturally gifted kid in the water right now, but by far he’s the hardest working. He has the best attitude of any kid out there.”

Kai started out at age 3, on a surfboard, while watching dad, Martin Lenny, windsurfing Maui’s shores. By age 9, Kai was windsurfing with legend Robbie Naish. Along the way he’s picked up an unrivaled ocean arsenal; a skill set that includes: long boarding, short boarding, kite boarding, foil boarding, skim boarding, and his new passion, standup paddle surfing.

“I think by far that stand up paddle is going to turn into one of the next big things,” he explains as his hands leave his lap and begin animating again. “You can do it anywhere in the world: on a lake, down rivers, flat water, little waves, you can do it in big waves; and I think its just going to get more progressive. I think also its going to take a lot from windsurfing, surfing, long boarding, all of that will come together, and it will become really progressive in big waves.”

Kai’s middle name could be Humility; ironically, perhaps prophetically, “My middle name is Waterman,” he reveals with a proud giggle. “And ‘Kai,’ in the Hawaiian language, ‘Kai’, translates to “Ocean’.”

He is as closely related to both the definition and lineage of “Waterman” as anyone his age could possibly be; perhaps more so than even he can relate to. But, for certain, he is taking nothing for granted, and every second he is afforded water-time he is taking full advantage of.

“Yesterday, I went short boarding earlier, and then, after I came back, I grabbed my stand up, and went out for a long time, and just worked the shore break until the sun was almost down,” he recalls. “And then it got really good for short boarding, so I did a five wave sesh, right out front. Those are the best sessions for me where I can just go out and do whatever sport the ocean calls for and the earth calls for. I like that little routine where I can go, Pop! Pop! Pop!”

If ever there were a human being, the kind that you could stand next to and actually feel passion vibrating, or emanating from within them, it would be Kai. Hs enthusiasm, and exuberance, when detailing the water events of even an average surf day, are electric; and sitting next to him you can literally feel his delight.

“The way I like to ride any sort of wave is to not think about what to do but to do just what the wave says to do. Like if there is a lip there,” Kai’s hands are again rising and falling with the break of the wave and his past perspective, “and there’s the possibility of the biggest aerial of my life, I’m going to hit that, and do an aerial. Its never ‘I’m going to take off and look for an aerial’, because when you do that you miss three other turns that could lead up to an aerial.”

His favorite surf break is in Morocco, he definitely loves Honolua Bay, Swimming Pools down in Fiji, and any break he can find on Maui.

He listens to U2, the Red-Hot Chili Peppers, Placebo, and David Bowie. He loves making home videos, but he hates to have a dirty room.

On the wall in his bedroom, next to the computer, across from the surf-poster personalized to him from, “Uncle Laird,” is tacked one sheet of paper: a prioritized list of goals.

“I definitely want to become a world champion in windsurfing and right now I think that’s my main goal, to really pursue the world championship in windsurfing,” he offers with sincerity. “But to also continuing doing all of my sports. Whatever it is, definitely just want to keep doing it all every day whatever the conditions call for.”

Kai has no room to sit back and chill however, because living under the same roof is his12-year-old little brother, Ridge, who also inherited the Lenny family waterman gene.

“Ridge is actually really good at all the sports too,” Kai confesses, as his brother silently sits at a table behind him, listening to every word. “He does everything I do. Ridge lights a fire under my butt. I just hopefully will try not to get passed up by Ridge.”

Kai looks over his shoulder and gives a silent brotherly glance across the room at Ridge. Ridge smiles, and like Kai would probably do, if challenged by Laird or Dave, Ridge respectfully dismisses him with a humble and silent nod; one, however, that shouts, “bring it on bro”, while not having to say a word.

“Nine out of ten times it’s not the most naturally gifted athlete, it’s the hardest working athlete that becomes successful,” offers Kalama. “If you do it for the love, like Kai does, then the rest will come. When you love what you do, in the end, the rest will work its self out.”

Kai Waterman Lenny provides now doubt to any observer that what he does in the ocean he loves as much as life itself. If what his friend Dave says is true, then there should be no doubt that Kai will someday soon notch off that goal on his goal sheet, the one that says: “World Champion.”