I once met a flier who was a farmer and taught himself to fly in his hay field. He held the transmitter vertically in front of himself and pushed the stick up for up control and down for down control. Seems logical if you hold the transmitter vertical. Now if you hold it horizontal, it seems more natural to pull back for up.

"Balls to the wall." In the old days, especially on multi-engine airplanes, the tops of the throttles had ball-shaped knobs on them. The bulkhead in front of the pilots was the firewall. In an emergency situation, pilots would try to get a little extra power by trying to push the throttles as far forward as possible. He was trying to push the balls (throttles) to the firewall (wall).

I might be wrong on "the whole 9 yards," and you navy guys may need to correct this and I apologize for possible wrong terminology, but on an old sailing ship, the mast had 3 yard arms (yards). In nearly calm conditions, they would add an extension yard arm out from each main yard, giving a total of 9 yard arms. The maximum sail was with all 9 yards employed, hence, going all out was using "the whole 9 yards."