George S. Ledyard
The only reason I feel descriptive terminology is important is that the brain tends to ignore information it can't categorize...
For example, I was working with a student at a seminar I taught. I was doing a slow Ikkyo and wanted him to feel the difference between when I had my attention "on the inside" and when it was "on the outside". As I held his arm I made the shift inside and then asked him if he'd felt it? He said, no he was sorry but he didn't. The funny thing was, his whole body moved slightly when I shifted. His body felt it but he didn't know what to call it so he didn't register consciously what I had done.
Did he understand your question? Was the description enough to show him what to look for? I notice that you have put "on the inside" and "on the outside" in double quotes. There is obviously a reason for this, but if you have to do this here, in this forum, how did you signal the unusual nature of the phrase when you were teaching him?
Years ago, Fred Newcomb, a senior yudansha of the New England Aikikai, used precisely the same phrases to make his point, when describing something else. He then added, "It is all the same anyway," and no one had a clue what he meant, least of all the white-belted students he was teaching.