Playing within yourself

It's such a cliche, but most phrases that end up there have some truth. I've never been the go-to guy on any team, college or club (offensively at least). Of course, I only played two years of college, one of which was the 6-12 months after an ACL reconstruction. I then land on Zero where I joined an army of D-line cutters. The point? I love D-line and cutting but if you approach practice the way you should (as it they were tourneys), then when is the time to push the boundaries? Especially towards the end of the season, you want to practice closely to your nationals behavior. I guess that makes the beginning of the season the experimental time by default. And don't tell me that rec leagues are the answer because I'm not concerned about my throws to garbage cuts.

As demonstrated by my old cross-the-river friends at Carleton, an army is good only as long as you have a few to lead them. In college, the talent pool is more shallow (shallower?) and the turnaround quick. In club, your leaders can stick around for 8-10 years if things play out right. However, that transition seems to be accompanied by a auto-qualify drop (auto semis to auto quarters, ie DoG and Condors, not meant as a jab like most others do nowadays) or an outright disassembly (NYNY, Windy, Z).

This meandering leads me back to my original point: playing within yourself is probably good for the team, but if you're always PWY (sorry, I work in insurance and acronyms are a way of life), when do you push it and improve?