I thought that willpower was about suppressing feelings, generating tension in the mind and somehow enduring this tension till the drill time was up. At least that's what I had been shown and told over the years. However, I never somehow got along with this approach to willpower. During the Intensive with Juan, I think I gained a different perspective: instead of suppressing emerging thoughts and generating tension, one can try the opposite - to *release*. Let's say one holds a passive hang and it is getting harder and harder. Distractions might be emerging in mind, such as “I won’t make this", "I am too heavy and too weak for this", "Those people are looking at me" or "How much time is left?”. These thoughts and emotions that distract from focus are something that Juan called *contractions of the mind.* > Observe how your mind contracts. — Juan, every day during the Intensive If I understand Juan well, one releases by mentally and physically breathing into the contraction. I've been trying out this approach since the Intensive and I'm surprised by an unexpected quality of experience that has been emerging during painful drills. At the core, there's still the grit of the drill in the experience, the pain. But around it, it feels different. As if the uncontrollable storm is being replaced with more calmer waters.