Question

How did the instructor ‘build a swimmer’ out of Douglas?

Answer 1

Hint: It took the instructor seven months to make Douglas swim. The instructor broke the whole swimming regime into individual pieces of training.

Complete answer:
The author had a fear of water ever since an eighteen-year-old bully threw him into a deep pool. His fear took over him whenever he went for fishing trips, boating etc. Hence, to overcome this fear he engaged with an instructor who trained him one hour every day for five days of the week.
The instructor, very gradually and patiently ‘built a swimmer’ out of Douglas. For three months he did not even ask Douglas to put his face inside the water. All these three months, he trained him with a rope (which went over a pulley on an overhead cable) attached to his belt. He was made to swim back and forth like this. This was the first piece of his training.
After three months he was asked to put his face inside water. After a few weeks the author’s fear began to decrease and he did not panic as much. Hence, the instructor asked him to kick himself to swim. This was the last piece of the author’s training.
He did this whole routine for seven months, after which all the pieces of his training were complete and now he just had to put them all together. The instructor finally asked him to swim the whole pool on his own.
Thus, we can say that the instructor ‘built a swimmer’ out of Douglas, bit by bit or piece by piece.

Note:
i) Even after his training was complete, the author wasn’t sure if he had actually conquered his fears. Hence, he went to test himself at Lake Wentworth in New Hampshire.
ii) There, he dived off from a dock and swam two miles across the lake, thus making sure that he feared water no more.