Hemingway's The Old Man and The Sea

Hello...

This is from Hemingway's The Old Man and The Sea.



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He could not see by the slant of the line that the fish was circling. It was too early for that. He just felt a faint slackening of the pressure of the line and he commenced to pull on it gently with his right hand. It tightened, as always, but just when he reached the point where it would break, line began to come in. He slipped his shoulders and head from under the line and began to pull in line steadily and gently. He used both of his hands in a swinging motion and tried to do the pulling as much as he could with his body and his legs. His old legs and shoulders pivoted with the swinging of the pulling.




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Does the underlined part mean.... He leaned himself to get out of the line?



OR....



It doesn't have to be that he leaned himself but it only means that he got out of the line?