Ultimately when your surfing nearly every turn you do should create speed (not lose speed) it is the reason why we do turns. If you are looking down the line, it means you’re not turning and not creating speed.
The reason why we do a top turn is to utilise gravity to be able to drop back down the wave and generate speed. If you are looking laterally along the wave you are not dropping in and you’re not getting the speed you are looking for!
The muscle memory in your strike range would be to twist around to either look back at the foam which is a source of power or to return back to the power zone of the bottom.
You need to twist and look, the muscle memory for that being keep your hands up. This allows you to have a quicker strike rate to use your core, almost like a boxer. If you are surfing in a tight enough radius, all your strike zones will be within your reach allowing you to generate more than enough speed to match the waves flow.