Eyes on the conductor

Rick Trostel, in the piece he wrote about the 2008-2009 Juneau Student Symphony season, has a picture of Robert with his eyes intensely focused on Rick during a rehearsal. It's the picture on the second page of his retrospective: http://www.juneausymphony.org/studentsymphony/2008-9%20season%20retrospective%20-%20good.pdf.

I wrote a couple of days ago about frequently getting lost, especially when I have been playing and get flustered as I pick up my count of measures. I am often a measure late or a measure early, and I think it usually stems from getting through whatever little chunk I am playing (or big chunk, as the case may be); then I heave an inward sigh of relief and get off track. Yesterday or maybe Thursday in rehearsal I focused on watching Todd as much as possible, and it helped a great deal in those moments that I had that focus. I think I've been watching the music too much, maybe with 80% of my attention on the music and 20% on the conductor. I almost always have the conductor in the corner of my eye (or the top of my vision field, to be precise) but my eyes are focused more on the music.

Do I have to have more of the music committed to memory and use the printed page as a reminder? Mechanically, physically, how do I achieve this? If I can, my sense is that I will vastly improve my ability to keep my place. If I don't keep losing the conductor's beat, then having to find it again with the risk of being off, won't this help?