The Zen of Swimminig

Swimming lessons have gotten a little weird. I know it's partly due to my misunderstanding the Chinese sometimes, but it's also due to my swimming teacher being obsessed with me relaxing when I swim. Like the other night, he was telling me to do some drill at a very slow speed, and I said I'd try. he said, "You have to stop trying, and start doing." Like Yoda?
Then he said that a bunch of people from the swimming school would be going to Sun Moon Lake. There is an annual swim across the lake, and I thought maybe that's what he meant, and I said I'd like to go, and asked when it was. "When you think you're ready to go, you can go," he said. I asked a few more questions but didn't really get beyond that point. Like I asked if a bus would be going there (often a group will rent a bus to go somewhere) and he said, "Think about it." Um, I didn't mean a metaphorical bus... Maybe I missed the point of some Chinese proverb but it was a very odd.