A review of Oscar Chalupsky’s No Retreat, No Surrender

Melinda Edward (as on social media)

For some time, I was looking for a nonfiction work about an inspirational athlete whose story of triumph over physical challenges would personally motivate me. Many of you know that chronic pain often interrupted (and sometimes still does interrupt) my kayak training for as much as months. Before back surgery, I was tempted to quit paddling a few times, a decision that would have been tantamount to permanent self-deprivation of fresh air. Oscar Chalupsky’s No Retreat, No Surrender was exactly the book I longed to read: the narrative of Oscar’s life as a world-renown surfski paddler, an innovator of ocean paddling craft, a successful businessman, husband and father, and an intrepid soldier declaring war on cancer yields hope to everyone coping with their own struggles no matter how great or small and serves to reinvigorate the passion that lies in every dedicated athlete, especially in those of us paddlers enchanted by the ocean.

 Besides the awe that Oscar’s courage evokes and the optimism that his simple, practical advice at the end of each chapter offers his readers on the art of living well, his autobiography also details interesting history about surfski paddling in South Africa, the founding of Epic kayaks, and the evolution of ocean surfski races like the Molokai that he and other famous paddlers helped to shape with their own legendary wins. I was particularly surprised about the challenges that Oscar and Greg Barton as co-founders of Epic had to confront when their factory was still in its infancy in China and the sacrifices that had to be made in order for a small kayak company to become a giant in the ocean paddling industry. I enjoyed Oscar’s race recollections, including: his first time winning the 250-kilometer, 4-day ocean surfski challenge from Port Elizabeth to East London; the test of fraternal love and integrity that Oscar faced with his brother and fellow competitor Herman during the 1985 Spanish river race, the Sella Descent; naturally, Oscar’s 12 wins at the Molokai; and, his recent victory at the 2021 Molokabra race in Brazil, a victory in fact made over a last round of chemotherapy treatments that Oscar had finished merely the day before in Portugal. No Retreat, No Surrender is further delightful in its abundance of fun facts ranging from amazing records set in ocean sports to interesting background information about people who have played an important role in the world surfski community. To name just two examples of facts that astonished me: owner of Nelo Manuel Ramos is a polio survivor and my own acquaintance Jim Hoffman, co-owner of Ocean Paddlesports East, was also the executive vice president of NBC. But perhaps most interesting was learning how apartheid affected the South African surfski community and what that community, and Oscar, in particular, did to help advance Nelson Mandela’s cause.

 A book as engaging as No Retreat, No Surrender, however, is even more than vastly informative and educational: it inspires self-reflection and a desire for further learning. As I lay on my bed still resting for three weeks after aggravating my sciatica the day of the Hudson River Cup when I realized I made the devastating mistake of leaving my seat pad at home, I couldn’t help but laugh in incredulity when reading how Oscar’s one-time fumbling on the start line that caused him to lose his own seat pad still did not prevent him from winning the Molokai that day and from sitting comfortably afterwards in celebration with friends. This single episode in Oscar’s life is an example among so many that remind me of stark degrees of difference between myself and some of the best surfski paddlers in regard to two main factors: tolerance levels for pain and risk. Although I learned to adapt to daily physical discomfort and still paddle for long distances, such as completing a 30-mile circumnavigation of Manhattan in my sea kayak just weeks before back surgery, my so-called high threshold for pain would be perhaps no more than ignoring a paper-cut in comparison to Oscar’s repeated phenomenal recoveries after cancer treatments that he admits have made many others suffer in sheer agony. Of equal contrast is my natural aversion to risk and the embrace of risk that great ocean paddlers like Oscar seem to have in common. I can only imagine Oscar chuckling if he knew the years of fear I had to overcome from dealing with 15kt winds in my sea kayak on bumpy Jersey shore waters to feeling comfortable on my Epic v8 pro in similar open water conditions. I am very curious to learn the science of successful extreme sport athletes who seem to have an extraordinary ability to be indifferent to pain, which, in my nonexpert guess, has a direct correlation to an insatiable need for “adrenaline rush.” Despite physiological and psychological differences between Oscar and someone like me, I can say with confidence that I, like all open water paddlers can relate profoundly to his metaphor of life being a “100-footer” meant for riding: for those of us who are always in pursuit of challenge in work and in play, open water paddling never ceases to excite the mind and the senses, because chasing after waves no matter their size allows reliving moment to moment the most intense joy in the face of fear and uncertainty, the greatest “yes” to life that my favorite philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (no accident here, that Nietzsche, Oscar, and I are all of German descent, hehehe) postulated would be the result of an Eternal Return, an affirmation of an infinite re-play of our life that he wished for all humans to experience as an ultimate triumph over the worst.