You want analogies? OK...
Teaching the basics of hovering.
I keep a metre-long piece of wooden dowel in the office. I get the new student to balance the dowel on one finger. Bloggs does it easily.
I ask Bloggs to describe what he/she is doing - they cannot. "Err.. you sort of do whatever you have to do to make it balance" they say.
Correct, says I. Same as in the hover. Your job is to make the attitude stay in the one spot in the window - forget the grass below or the fact that we are drifting, that will come later. Concentrate solely on keeping the picture flat and in the right spot. Do whatever you have to do to make it stay there. Sometimes you push forward, other times you pull back. And sometimes, when the machine is moving backwards, you have to resist the urge to push forward, and instead pull back, all to get the attitude to stay where it should be.
Back to the stick. Where were your eyes while balancing it?
"Err.. dunno ... the top maybe?"
Correct - do it again to prove it. See? Now, look at your finger and try to keep the dowel balanced. (Bloggs then hits self on head with stick.)
So: the attitude is the tip of the stick. Watch the attitude, and do whatever you have to do with your hand (on cyclic) to make it stay there. In the early stages, if you look at the grass or the movement over the ground, you will lose the attitude. With time, of course, you can hover by watching a blade of grass, but in the early stages, until you grasp the way of controlling the attitude, keep the eyes outside on the horizon.